Sterchi Farm trailhead to reopen with new amenities
Upgrades to the park at the Sterchi Farm trailhead of the South Chickamauga Creek Greenway are nearly complete.
In April, a grand opening event was held for the city’s first piece of environmental art, an “adventure trail” built by Portland-based sculptural landscape artist Adam Kuby. It features a field of challenging obstacles, such as repurposed logs from the Miller Park revitalization, users can traverse. The installation was funded by a donation from The Lyndhurst Foundation and a collaborative grant from the nonprofit National Recreation and Park Association and The Walt Disney Company.
After the grand opening of the adventure trail April 28, the city closed the park for upgrades, including the addition of a pavilion with restroom facilities and paving the parking lot.
Area resident Heather Wheatley and her daughter were among the attendees at the grand opening, which also featured live music, food trucks and kayak rentals. When they returned to the park to play last month, they were surprised to find the adventure trail overgrown with weeds.
“It is very set off from the main concrete walking trail, and there are no visible paths to get over to the park. It is so overgrown that we could barely see it from the path,” Wheatley wrote in an email to the Times Free Press on July 11. “I am just curious as to why so much time, energy and money were spent on this only to let it get overgrown with weeds.”
Wheatley also complained that, because of the continued closure of the parking lot, people are parking at a nearby church and walking through her yard to get to the Sterchi Farm trailhead.
Akosua Cook, parks planner for the city of Chattanooga, said while city officials had planned for the upgrades to be complete at the end of July, work had to be delayed a few weeks because of bad weather.
Workers recently poured the slab, swept the asphalt and finished grading the new lot, she said. The pavilion structure has been built, and the utility lines for the restrooms will be installed within the next few weeks, Cook said, adding that she hopes for the restrooms and lot to be open in September.
As for the adventure trail, she said it was intended for some grass to be allowed to grow back around the art installation, as it is meant to blend in with the natural environment. Cook said city officials do mow a path about 50 feet long leading from the concrete greenway to the art piece, but since signs for the adventure trail have not yet been installed, some people may have difficulty locating the path. Permanent signs have been ordered and will solve that problem once installed, she added.
Until the parking lot at Sterchi Farm is reopened, Cook said the city is directing South Chickamauga Greenway users to the nearest trailhead, located at the 3900 block of North Hawthorne Street.