BLACKSBURG — It won’t be a long walk, but it’s a start.

Blacksburg Town Council recently accepted a $100,000 Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation grant to begin construction of the long-discussed Ellett Valley Nature Trail.

The grant, along with $12,500 each from the town and Montgomery County, will fund construction of a 2,260-foot section of the trail through the Blacksburg Industrial Park from Commerce Street to Jennelle Road.

“This is really the easiest part of the trail to build,” Blacksburg Town Manager Marc Verniel said.

Nearby landowners were cooperative, “so we just thought we could get it built,” he said. At just under a half-mile, this part of the trail — referred to on town maps as “section four” — is a small start on a proposed six-mile greenway that would loop around from the Blacksburg Industrial Park through the Ellett Valley Park and back.

Much of the rest of the proposed trail winds across private property, and officials expect that securing permissions and rights of way for future sections will be more complicated. “It’s great,” Andrew Schenker said Monday about the grant.

Schenker lives near the proposed trail and said he looks forward to construction of the first phase because it will increase safety for bicyclists such as himself who pedal along Jennelle Road. The curvy two-lane road has narrow gravel shoulders and serves as a throughway for commercial truck traffic from a nearby quarry and an asphalt plant.

“The less I can be on that road, the better,” Schenker said.

The idea for the loop trail came from Schenker, who suggested it in 2003 as a way to save the Ellett Valley Park adjacent to his family’s farm, also on Jennelle Road.

The park sits just outside the town limits and has 109 acres of primitive hiking trails that wind through woodlands.

An early draft of a long-term vision plan for the town’s parks and recreation department under consideration five years ago suggested selling the park land and using the money to fund in-town programs and facilities. That consultant-led version of the plan was eventually tabled.

A new 20-year vision plan scheduled for public comment later this month stops short of suggesting sale of the property. Rather, the plan points out that “resource allocation is minimal for this out-of-town property which poses a threat to its long-term viability.”

The vision plan also states that trail connections leading to the Jefferson National Forest on the northwestern end of town are a higher priority than trail connections to the Ellett Valley Park on the town’s south end.

Still, the vision plan places the Ellett Valley Loop Trail high on the priority list of greenway systems hoped to be completed in the next two decades.

It’s unclear when construction will begin on this first section of the trail, but the grant money must be used within three years.

The project is also a sign of cooperation in a time of tense relations between the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors and the town council, which have recently been at loggerheads over the future of the old Blacksburg Middle School and a proposed affordable housing project off Harding Avenue.

At a recent council meeting, Blacksburg Mayor Ron Rordam praised the county for its financial support and cooperation on the trail project.

Town’s parks plan up for public comments

What will Blacksburg’s parks and recreation programs be like 20 years from now? Residents may weigh in on this question later this month when officials hold comment sessions on a proposed Parks and Recreation Master Plan.

Meetings are scheduled from 4 to 7 p.m. July 24 and 28 at the Blacksburg Community Center on Patrick Henry Drive. Written comments may be submitted by post to Town of Blacksburg, Town Manager’s Office, P.O. Box 90003, Blacksburg, VA 24062 or by e-mail to clawrence@blacksburg.gov. The deadline for comments is July 31. The master plan has been developed in the past five years and may be used to establish funding priorities for new projects and expansion of existing facilities and programs.

As written, it identifies 10 priorities for the town’s recreation program, including construction of an outdoor pool, a new community recreation center, an 18-hole golf course and a nature study center to be built at Heritage Community Park and Natural Area.

The plan also prioritizes building new athletic fields, including a proposed facility at the 30-plus-acre Interchange Park at South Main Street and the U.S. 460 bypass.

Completion of the town’s greenway and trail network is also outlined in the plan, including an expansion of the town’s signature Huckleberry Trail to the northwestern end of town and the Jefferson National Forest. The plan estimates completion of planned trail systems will cost about $5.5 million.

Electronic versions of the plan may be viewed at blacksburg.gov.