With the opening of the 583-acre Broad Run Park on April 15, The Parklands of Floyds Fork has completed the final major portion of the nearly 4,000- acre park system that ranks among the nation’s largest and most ambitious new metropolitan park systems.
In total, The Parklands represents a $125 million community capital investment that provides vast and varied outdoor recreational opportunities along an approximately 20-mile ribbon of trails, picnic and playground areas, woods, meadows and creek that span from Shelbyville Road to Bardstown Road in eastern and southeastern Louisville.
The Parklands worked with internationally renowned landscape planning and architecture firms to plan a world-class design. Wallace Roberts & Todd, based in Phialdelphia led landscape planning and design while Bravura, and architecture firm based in Lousiville, designed structures and bridges.
The Parklands’ newest park, Broad Run, joins the already open Beckley Creek Park (653 acres, opened 2012-13), Pope Lick Park (603 acres, opened 2013) and Turkey Run Park (1,257 acres, opened 2015) in the new park system connected by 19 miles of the Louisville Loop walking and cycling path and 20 miles of paddling trail along Floyds Fork creek. Two miles of the Louisville Loop located in The Strand, a collection of land connecting Pope Lick and Turkey Run Parks, remain under construction. The Parklands hopes to have The Strand completed this summer, allowing for full connectivity of all four parks via the Louisville Loop.
Developed and managed by the nonprofit 21st Century Parks, The Parklands is a fully donor-supported public park system that began construction just five years ago. Other major park projects of this scale around the country have been a decade or more in planning and development.
To learn more about The Parklands of Floyds Fork visit theparklands.org
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