Mobile’s progress on the Three Mile Creek Greenway Trail: What’s built + what’s next

Mobile’s 6.5-mile Three Mile Creek Greenway Trail, the linear park stretching from Japanese Gardens near Municipal Park to Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, continues moving forward, with real estate, design and construction progress happening across several segments at once.

We caught up with Jennifer Greene, director of programs and project management for the City of Mobile, for an update.

What is the Three Mile Creek Greenway Trail?

The trail follows Three Mile Creek through parcels the city acquired after a major flood in the early 1980s destroyed homes along the waterway. A study conducted in the aftermath of that flood laid the groundwork for the green space project now becoming reality, decades later.

The trail is broken into seven segments, each treated as its own mini-project:

• Segment 1 (Japanese Gardens): Complete and open for about a year
• Segment 6 (Tricentennial Park to University Hospital): Complete
• Segment 5 (Bush Park to Mill Street Park): In design; real estate nearly wrapped up
• Segment 7 (Tricentennial Park to MLK Jr. Avenue): Design finished, awaiting a notice to bid from RESTORE
• Segments 2 and 3: In design, with real estate work ongoing

The east side of the trail is funded through RESTORE Act dollars, a program that channels Deepwater Horizon oil spill penalties into Gulf Coast restoration projects.

Segment 7 and 5 updates: What’s next on the Mobile greenway trail

Segment 7, running from Tricentennial Park to MLK Jr. Avenue, is the next stretch headed to construction. Because it sits between the floodway and the flood plain, the design had to account for groundwater that historically flowed through the old creek channel.

“We’ve worked with some of our partners at (The University of) South (Alabama) to understand that groundwater that’s coming up through there.

“Our design incorporates ways for that groundwater to continue to flow back into the creek without affecting the trail. So some really neat engineering components to that.”

Jennifer Greene

Design is done, and the city is now waiting on a notice to bid from the state, a required step before construction can begin. Once that notice comes through, Greene said the bid-and-award process typically takes about 18 months to deliver a completed segment.

Segment 5, from Bush Park to Mill Street Park, includes a 200-foot ADA-compliant pedestrian bridge reconnecting the two sides of the creek. The city recently closed on four major real estate transactions for that segment, with just one small railroad easement parcel left to acquire. Bush Park itself is getting a new parking lot, drainage fixes, pavilions, restrooms and walking loops as part of the project.

Real estate for Segment 2, between two railroad trestles near Japanese Gardens, has also cleared a major hurdle: after five years of coordination, the city received approval from railroad company ICRR for its underpass design.

Land acquisition remains one of the biggest variables in the timeline, Greene said, since some properties are more complicated to close on than others.

“(For Segment 5), we only have one tiny little parcel left, which is a railroad easement, so we’re really excited about that. That’s really moved the needle forward.

“Some transactions that we work on can take five years or more.”

Jennifer Greene

How the greenway trail fits into Mobile’s larger Greenway Initiative

The Three Mile Creek Greenway Trail is one piece of the larger Mobile Greenway Initiative, a planned 18.5-plus mile network of on- and off-road trails stretching across the city, including Brookley by the Bay and Perch Creek Preserve.

With over 100 real estate parcels involved and funding tied to federal timelines, Greene said the project doesn’t move on a single deadline.

“These types of transformative projects are not something that are like St. Louis Street, where I can tell you when the end date of [the project] is. It’s a little bit different with these projects. That’s why they are designed in segments.”

Jennifer Greene

Want to see it for yourself? Segments 1 and 6 are open now, and you can explore the full trail map and project details online.