City seeks grant to make Moss Rock Preserve more accessible

Kelly Bonner and her 5-year-old daughter like to go hiking in the Moss Rock Preserve nature park, but it’s something Kelly’s husband, Raymond, can’t do with them.

Raymond uses a wheelchair, and the terrain is too rough for him to easily access, so mother and daughter make that trip as just the two of them.

However, the city of Hoover is pursuing a $200,000 grant that could help make the park more accessible for people in wheelchairs and others with similar mobility issues.

The city is seeking a grant from the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs recreational trails program that would help the city of Hoover build a trail and overlook area that would give everyone access to the popular boulder field in the park.

The idea is to build a new parking lot with five or six handicapped-accessible spaces several hundred feet south of the boulder field and about 30 feet from the shoulder of Preserve Parkway and use natural materials to build a firm and stable trail that’s about 600 feet long.

The trail would lead to a 12-by-12-foot observation platform that would sit above one of the boulders and give people the same viewpoint they would get if they were to climb one of the boulders in the field, said Dee Nance, the community services officer for the city of Hoover.

The observation platform would be built out of a Trex composite deck material and be designed to fit into the natural setting, Nance said. “We want to keep it as natural as the natural environment will allow,” she said.

The trail and overlook platform would allow people in wheelchairs, people with walkers and parents with strollers to enjoy views previously unavailable to them, Nance said.

The accessible trail idea came about as a result of Hoover Councilman Casey Middlebrooks attempting to take one of his sons who has mobility issues into the park and having difficulty doing so, Nance said. She and City Forester Colin Conner did some brainstorming and came up with this idea, and within a couple of days a recreational trails grant opportunity presented itself, she said.

Nance and Conner said it’s important to them to maintain the natural beauty of the park. “We don’t want to go in and put in 8-12 miles of asphalt trails,” Nance said.

But Conner, who loves the nature park, said it’s pretty exciting to him to think about people who have never been able to see the beauty of the boulder field to be able to see it in person.

Bonner, who is associate director of the National Center on Health, Physical Activity and Disability, said it would be an awesome opportunity for her family to be able to experience that together.

The total cost of the project is estimated to be $291,000, Nance said. The grant being sought is for $200,000, and the city’s match would be $91,000, including $47,000 in cash, a $7,500 donation from the Hoover Parks and Recreation Foundation and in-kind work by city staff, she said.

The project also would include 50-60 parking spaces along the driveway leading to the handicapped parking area and trailhead, Conner said. Having those spaces will be important because the existing parking area is slated for commercial development, he said.

Nance said city officials should know by August whether they will get the grant. If they get it, the project would have to be completed within 18 months, she said. Also, if the city is successful with this grant request, it may seek a second grant to improve trail accessibility from the Moss Rock Preserve gravel parking area off Sulphur Springs Road, Conner said.