...Explanation
BACKGROUND: The City’s Recreation and Parks Department (“CRPD”) is engaged in the FRA-Olentangy Trail/Clinton Como Project, PID 112036 (“Public Project”). The Olentangy Trail is Central Ohio’s most heavily used greenway trail. Recent trail count data shows over 4 million trail miles per year are traveled on this path.
In 2018, Recreation and Parks applied for and received $ 5,417,132 in grant funding from the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission to construct the final gap of the 14 mile Olentangy Trail, from Northmoor Park to Clinton Como Park. This central 0.6 mile segment of the trail between Northmoor Park and Clinton Como Park was never completed, and users must leave the trail and use a 1 mile signed on-street route which travels on 5 different streets. The route is widely recognized as difficult to navigate, congested, narrow, and unsafe. The route includes constricted sections where combined two-way car and trail traffic is on 11’-13’ wide pavement.
This project will complete this final trail gap by constructing a crossing of the Olentangy River at Northmoor Park and travel along the west bank of the river. At North Broadway the trail will use an enhanced bike and pedestrian crosswalk and signal and travel along the river behind the Ohio Health campus on North Broadway. The trail will then continue south and cross the river to Clinton Como Park, where it rejoins the existing trail.
As part of the grant funding, Recreation and Parks is responsible to acquire any necessary permanent and temporary easements to construct the trail project. The City must acquire in good faith and accept certain fee simple title and lesser real estate located between Northmoor Park to Clinton Como Park Columbus, Ohio 43214 (collectively, “Real Estate”). Accordingly, CRPD requested the City Attorney to acquire the Real Estate in good faith and contract for associated professional services (e.g. surveys, title work, appraisals, etc.) in order for CRPD ...
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