"Huge" Ecusta News: Brevard Will Receive More Than $20 Million for Trail Construction

The city has learned its applications have been approved for two large federal grants, one of which will fund the building of the trail from Brevard to Hendersonville.

Old railroad bridge over the French Broad River on the future path of the Ecusta Trail in Henderson County, photographed in April of last year.

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BREVARD — After a long struggle to find any outside sources of money to build the multi-use Ecusta Trail, the city of Brevard has a new problem: Deciding which of two federal grants — each totaling more than $20 million — to accept.

Either way, the news is the same, and it’s “huge,” said Brevard Mayor Maureen Copelof. There will be money available to build the 19.4-mile trail on a former railbed linking Hendersonville and Brevard.

“This trail will be transformative for Brevard and Transylvania County, and I appreciate the hard, hard work over many years that our collaborative partners have all put into making this a reality,” Copelof said. “We are going to move out as soon and as fast as possible to build this trail.”

On Thursday, US Senator Thom Tillis announced that the city, which in 2021 became the lead government agency for trail construction in Transylvania, had received a $24.6-million federal RAISE grant.

About $18.7 million of the total from this program — Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity — would go for trail construction in Transylvania, with the remaining sum to serve as matching funds for work in Henderson County.

Two weeks ago, the city learned from US Rep. Chuck Edwards that it had been awarded $21.4 million from the Nationally Significant Federal Lands and Tribal Projects (NSFLTP) Program, which is focused, as the name suggests, on funding projects that connect to land owned by American Indians or the federal government — in Ecusta’s case, Pisgah National Forest.

Though the city was confident enough about this award that it shared the news with partner organizations, it held off on a public announcement pending official word from the US Department of Transportation, which still has not arrived.

The RAISE grant would bring about $200,000 more than the earlier grant for work in Transylvania, reflecting the rising estimates of construction costs between October, when the city applied for the NSFLTP grant, and the February application deadline for the RAISE grant, Copelof said.

The main difference, she said, is that the second grant would provide more money for construction in Henderson County, which had already received several state grants and expects to start work on the first six miles of the path later this year.

“We don’t get to keep both,” Copelof said of the grants, “and we’re trying to figure out which one is best for everybody.”

Both city applications contained a package of about $5.5 million in matching funds, including a $1 million pledge from the Transylvania County Tourism Development Authority, about $1.5 in private donations collected by Conserving Carolina and previous state funding held by the Friends of the Ecusta Trail.

The city also rounded up letters of support for the grants from sources such as the state Department of Transportation, Henderson County and the city of Hendersonville, Copelof said.

The Transylvania County Commission also sent a letter backing the earlier application, but in February Copelof blasted the Commission for failing to support or discuss the city’s efforts to secure the RAISE grant.

The city had previously received a $1 million federal grant to pay for permitting and trail design, and that work is “underway,” Copelof said. Though the construction timeline is difficult to predict at this time, she said earlier this week, work on the trail in Transylvania will begin “probably in late 2024.”

It will happen much sooner than that in Henderson, said Christopher Todd, the county’s director of business and community development, thanks to a previous state grant to fund the building of the trail from downtown Hendersonville to near the crossing of the French Broad River.

“We expect to let the bids for construction this July, hopefully accept them this August and mobilize about that time to begin construction for that first six miles,” Todd said.

The work in the fall will likely include grading and building culverts and bridges, said Chirs Burns, a founding board member of Friends. But cold-weather restrictions on laying asphalt, he said, will probably delay paving until the spring.

“If the heavens align, maybe they start paving in the fall, but I think that’s a long shot,” he said.

Friends has long predicted that millions of dollars in private investment would follow the completion of the trail, and Burns said that is already happening, pointing to the recent opening of Trailside Brewing in “an old factory space in the Lennox Park factory just blocks away from downtown Hendersonville,” according to its website.

“People are already riding mountain bikes and walking down the trail to get to it,” Burns said of the unfinished railbed. “It’s open and I’m amazed at how packed it is already.”

Henderson had previously received a $10.5 million grant to build other stretches of the trail in the county. Either of the new federal grants would provide matching funds for that work, and even though more money is included in the RAISE grant, Todd said it is too soon to say which source will be used — or if any additional local funds will be needed.

“There’s a lot of questions right now because I think we’re all really, really surprised,” he said Friday. “I didn’t think a few weeks ago we would get either of (the grants) and now we walk into a really weird place where it looks like both are an opportunity.”

In the coming weeks, representatives from the city, Henderson County and private trail groups will discuss the grants with state and federal transportation officials “and try to figure out what’s best for everybody moving forward,” Todd said. “Every grant has different rules and pros and cons, because they all come with strings.”

He also pointed out that news of both grants had come from legislative offices without official confirmation from the federal Department of Transportation. 

“But I want to be clear, we’re thrilled and we’re happy for the trail as a whole,” he said.

Discussing the prospect of the earlier grant on Monday, Todd had compared the effort of securing funds to a nearly completed long-distance race.

With news of the second grant, he said Friday, “We’re no longer 100 yards from the finish line, we’re 50.”

And though construction has not begun, he’s already looking forward to trips on the trail with daughter, who is about to turn three years old.

“You can bet your bottom dollar,” he said. “She’s going to learn to ride her bike on that thing.”

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