Erlanger breaks ground for 1,000-hectare ‘forever adventure park’

ERLANGER, Ky. – “I can confidently say that this park is one of the biggest and best projects we have embarked on to date,” said Erlanger Mayor Jessica Fette.

Fette’s words foreshadowed Wednesday’s groundbreaking of a massive park project to be built in Erlanger. The event provided an overview of the project’s scope and goals and featured speeches from local and national elected officials and business leaders.

The project, recently named the Eons Adventure Park, will include more than 1,000 hectares of urban forest, 20 miles of mountain bike trails, a network of tree canopy trails and other amenities.

City of Erlanger

“This park will set a new standard for what a community space can be, and I can’t wait to see the impact it will have on Erlanger and Northern Kentucky as a whole,” Fette said.

While this is the first time the project has received such buzz, it is not the first time the city has spoken about it publicly. The city held a public workshop in July for residents of the Cherry Hill neighborhood, which borders the park, to discuss preliminary plans for the project and how it will affect the subdivision.

Tuesday’s event served only as a groundbreaking for the first part of the project. The first phase includes a dog park, traffic construction aimed at limiting semi-truck intrusion into Cherry Hill, the addition of multi-use trails nearby and the general revitalization of Old Erlanger Road, which will serve as a kind of spine along which the park starts spinning.

The city currently has $900,000 set aside this fiscal year to fund the initial portions of the project. The money comes from the city parks fund financed by the property tax. In addition, the city has received $250,000 in grants from the National Parks Service to assist with Phase 1 construction.

The city has also formed partnerships with several public and private interests to get the project moving and commercialized: Corporex, SD1, meetNKY and Boone and Kenton Counties. SD1 and Corporex are currently working with the city to donate land for the project, but these donations have not yet been finalized. Mark Collier, Erlanger’s economic development director, said these donations should be completed within the next year. Future financing of the project will depend on the votes of the Erlanger City Council, most of whom attended the event and participated in the groundbreaking.

The city’s community partners were generally optimistic about the project and its potential to attract new businesses and workers to the region.

“This is exactly the kind of thing that is represented and studied over and over again,” said Kentucky Senator Chris McDaniel (R-Ryland Heights). “We see, especially with the modern generation, that workers will move to a place because of amenities like trails, parks, nature and things like that.”

The images and amenities shown Tuesday represent what the project aims to achieve once it is completed. Key amenities include a large network of mountain biking and hiking trails, public works of art, trails on wooden bridges through the canopy, a nature playground, a hidden coffee shop that cyclists can find while riding the trails, and scenic overlooks. Fette also stated that the city will partner with local schools and universities to offer nature learning activities for students.

City of Erlanger

The nonprofit Cincinnati Off-Road Alliance, often abbreviated to CORA, advises on the park’s mountain bike trail networks. CORA’s chairman Brian Bozeman and Fette said they were inspired by a network of mountain bike trails in Bentonville, Arkansas, the famous birthplace of Walmart.

“In 2007, Walmart had a huge problem,” Bozeman said, “and that problem was that no one wanted to live in the dirty town of Bentonville, Arkansas. So Sam Walton’s grandsons, Tom and Stewart, had a vision to reinvent Bentonville in an effort to attract talent to the region, resulting in what is now known as the Mountain Bike Capital of the World.

According to the US Census, Bentonville saw a 53% population growth between 2010 and 2020. The goal was to replicate something like this for Erlanger and bring in more people and companies.

“The talent we are so desperately trying to attract to our region is choosing locations with access to nature, parks and outdoor recreation,” Bozeman said. “Our growth organizations are recruiting companies to our region without the talent pipeline to fill those jobs. These talented workers we seek choose their homes based on lifestyle and livability, not just a career.”

Fette also touted the project’s potential benefits for public health, the city’s property values ​​and overall quality of life.

“This is Erlanger’s Eternal Adventure Park and Preserve,” Fette said. “We also use the term because we want to make sure – and what this name means – is that we will keep this space forever and ever.”

Check out some preliminary renderings of the facilities below.