What a Fabulous Year it was…
We need your continued support for our 2024 expansion!
Dear Friends,
It’s hard to put into words the amount of progress the Greenway has made during the past year, but we wanted to share it with and thank you, our supporters and partners.
We started the year with a fabulous show of support at the Litchfield Town Meeting in January, in which the Greenway was successfully awarded a $60,000 ARPA grant for the construction of the Phase 5 extension along Russell Street. This will terminate at the former Shepaug Railroad station, which was renovated by the Litchfield Land Trust. If you’ve not seen it, come have a look – it’s been a fabulous, successful project, establishing a true landmark and wonderful future trailhead for the Greenway. In fact, it was featured on Connecticut News 12 – “Road Trip” – Watch it HERE.
The Spring of 2023 was filled with design work preparing for Phase 5 Town Commission meetings, as well as grant writing for Phase 4 funding. In February & March, we submitted our grant requests to Seherr-Thoss Foundations as well as CT DEEP Recreational Trails program to help fund the Phase 4, nearly 2-mile extension from North Shore Road to Stoddard Road, known as the “Trail to Bantam.” These grant applications received substantial community and business support, given the clear benefit it will offer, connecting both boroughs of the town.
In April, we participated in the GiveLocal fundraiser and successfully raised $10,000 and also received an anonymous grant of $25,000 to help pay for the “Bridge to Bantam”.
Later in April, we were thrilled to report that the Seherr-Thoss Foundations would again support the Greenway with a $48,000 grant for the Phase 4 extension. Then, in mid-May, CT DEEP publicly announced their awards, and the Greenway was awarded $241,125 also towards Phase 4, bringing the total funds raised to $330,000. While the project will cost more than that, we are well on our way, with hopes to pursue additional grant funding. Needless to say, we could not have done this without your support.
Basic Map of Phase 5 (Russell St) and Phase 4 (Trail to Bantam) Expansions We Are Pursuing!
Our engineer started his survey / design work along the lengthy section of trail which was overgrown. Because a temporary bridge was installed across the Bantam River in 2007, we are hopeful the original abutments are in good condition and should not have a problem accommodating a permanent pedestrian bridge.
Starting in June, we began work with CT DEEP to secure our vendor/contractor status and ensure all forms were properly executed and approved internally. On October 16th, our contract was signed by the CT Attorney General and went into effect, giving us the green light! Our focus now is to finalize our design work and present our plans to town commissions and the community.
In December, the Greenway plans to move into the recently renovated office space in the back part of the former Shepaug Railroad station building along with several other non-profit organizations.
Also in December, we plan to submit another grant application to CT DEEP for additional funds that were not awarded in the original grant request. These funds will be used for the western sections of the proposed trail, as well as trailhead parking.
. . . and 2024 will be Even Better!
Looking ahead, we anticipate 2024 will be an exciting year of construction for both Phase 4 & Phase 5, more than doubling the current length of the Greenway. Wow!
We hope to be in a position to start construction on Phase 4 once town approvals are secured and we finalize/extend existing licensing with Eversource, hopefully in the Spring. We plan to use the same bridge fabricator who supplied the bridge our team installed over Butternut Brook, known as the “Bridge to Everywhere” and anticipate a 14-16 week lead time.
Fortunately, the existing railway corridor is in decent condition outside of a few washouts, which require minor site work in addition to substantial fill (~5,000 cu yds) to help the trail grade up and over High Bridge Road.
We still need your support!
In addition to regular contributions, you may want to consider these other ways of giving:
- Respond to this appeal by sending your contribution in the enclosed envelope or be green and do it online here.
- Consider directing part of your IRA’s Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) to the Friends of the Litchfield Community Greenway. This can be an easier and more tax efficient way of making contributions.
- Help us improve regular communication and reduce mail costs by joining our email list by signing up via our updated website. Click HERE to do so.
- Send us your photos / videos from your time on the Greenway – we hope to include them in 2024 on our new Instagram.
- Let us know if you have ideas or are interested in joining us – drop us an email at litchfieldgreenway@gmail.com.
Thank you again for your continuing support and we look forward to updating you on our progress in 2024.
Happy Holidays!! We’ll see you on The Greenway!
Sincerely,
The Friends of the Litchfield Community Greenway Board of Directors
Clifford A. Cooper, President
Berta Andrulis Mette, Vice President
Chuck Conn, Secretary
Gwen Burgess, Treasurer
John Clock, Bill Jones, Jeff Pratt