Grant funds could give Opechee Loop trail a boost

LACONIA — More than $300,000 in federal funds could prove an important shot in the arm for the Opechee Loop recreational trail.

The city on Tuesday received notice that it had been selected to receive a $225,000 grant from the Northern Borders Regional Commission to use toward Opechee Loop — a five-mile route designed to provide more pedestrian- and biker-friendly access to Lakeport and downtown. The money would be used to build the first segment of the loop along Elm Street from Lakeport Square to Franklin Street.

Backers of the initiative are hoping to get another $100,000 from Belknap County. The money is included in $483,900 of federal COVID stimulus funds that the county commissioners have recommended be allocated to underwrite a number of local projects. The Belknap County Delegation is being asked to approve disbursement of those funds at a meeting scheduled for Thursday.

Northern Borders is a matching grant program which requires the city to come up with another $225,000 by the end of September 2023 in order to receive the federal share.

City Manager Scott Myers and Allan Beetle, chair of the WOW Trail Board of Directors, said that raising the match will be a public-private endeavor.

Myers said he envisions some of the money could come from the city’s general fund, with additional amounts from the funds generated by the Lakeport TIF district, and the WOW Trail organization.

Beetle noted that the WOW Trail has already provided $100,000 for design work on the Opechee Loop, which would run the length of Elm Street, and then go through land of the former Laconia State School and Ahern State Park before following Shore Drive and Holman Street into downtown.

Beetle sees the Opechee Loop as a supplementary effort of the WOW Trail, whose main goal is to create a bike-pedestrian shoreline pathway running from the Laconia-Belmont line to Meredith.

The Opechee Loop would make the more developed parts of the city more walkable and bike-friendly, Beetle said.

As initially conceived, the plan for the first segment of the loop called for widening the sidewalk on the south side of Elm Street between the WOW Trail trailhead off Lakeport Square and the Elm Street Bridge to better accommodate bicyclists, estimated to cost $450,000, according to Beetle.

That additional two feet of width was to have been accomplished by slightly narrowing Elm Street’s roadway, Public Works Director Wes Anderson explained.

However, Lakeport developer Scott Everett has recently proposed a more ambitious plan.

In a recent informal meeting with Myers, Mayor Andrew Hosmer, Beetle, and others, Everett suggested a promenade concept that would involve widening the sidewalk by four feet which provide space for landscaping and benches in addition to a bike path.

Myers said such a plan would require the direct acquisition or easements for private property adjacent to the current sidewalk. Ultimately it would need to be approved by the City Council.

Beetle said Everett’s enhanced design has been estimated to cost $750,000.

If the county delegation approves the proposal to give the $100,000 in ARPA funds to the WOW Trail, Beetle said the money would either be used toward the cost of the project’s first segment, or for the next phase, depending on the costs and donations received from other sources.

He said the WOW Trail plans to set up a GoFundMe page for individual contributions. In addition, the organization is working on plans for its major fundraiser this fall. The annual Runaway Pumpkin 5k/10k run and walk event is scheduled for Oct. 29, during the New Hampshire Pumpkin Festival.

Work on the second phase of the loop development is scheduled to occur next year with the widening of the sidewalk on the south side of Elm Street from Franklin Street to Hickory Stick Lane, just past Elm Street School — a distance of eight-tenths of a mile.

Funds for that work will be covered by a $1.4 million grant the city has received from a federally-funded, state-administered program to provide people with safe and convenient ways to walk and bike, according to Anderson.