Trail along St. Rose Parkway gets OK from planners

By Jeremy Twitchell

Friday, March 13, 2009 | 5:39 p.m.

The design framework for a six-mile trail on St. Rose Parkway won a 5-0 endorsement from the Henderson Planning Commission on Thursday.

The guidelines would create design and landscaping standards for a 50-foot wide trail corridor alongside St. Rose Parkway from Pecos Road to Las Vegas Boulevard.

The City Council will have the final say on the guidelines when it meets April 14.

Henderson Park Planner Patricia Ayala said the proposals are the result of two years of collaborative effort with the community.

"What was different on this is that we actually went to a lot of the stakeholders — the property owners, businesses, residents — and various user groups like the cyclists, the joggers and the walkers to hear what they would like to see," she said.

The guidelines would establish a 12-foot wide paved trail with desert landscaping on either side and an "oasis" of trees, shade structures and benches every 200 feet.

The design guidelines also include a heavy element of public art along the trail.

Though some sections of the trail have already been built as development has filled in along St. Rose Parkway, there is still a lot of untouched land for the city to work with, Ayala said. Developers who have built within the last year or two have designed their projects with the trail in mind, she said.

Ayala specifically mentioned Cashman Equipment, which recently relocated its headquarters to a 53-acre campus on St. Rose near Maryland Parkway, as a company that has embraced the city's vision for the trail.

The St. Rose Trail will be built in three ways: by developers who build the section of the trail that touches their property, by developers who give the city the money to build the trail along their property, and with money from the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act, which will be used to build the trail in sections where development has already occurred.

Ayala said the planning process has lasted for about two years.

"We're happy to see it," she said. "When it is a collaborative effort, it maybe takes a little longer but, in the end, it works a little better."

Jeremy Twitchell can be reached at 990-8928 or [email protected].