Photo by Jon Anderson
Double Oak Park has about 20 miles of hiking and biking trails in the 900 or so acres purchased by Shelby County in 2021.
The recent decision by the Forever Wild Land Trust and Shelby County Commission to double the size of Double Oak Park is a big deal for outdoor recreation enthusiasts, the president of a metro area mountain bike group said.
The Shelby County Commission on July 13 voted to pay $1.6 million to help the Forever Wild Land Trust purchase 907 acres next to Double Oak Park, doubling the size of the park to about 1,800 acres.
The total purchase price of the land is $6.42 million, with the Forever Wild Land Trust picking up $4.8 million of the cost, county records show. The sellers are Ebsco Industries and Ebsco Development Co.
Map courtesy of Shelby County
The area in pink is the nearly 900-acre Double Oak Park between Shelby County 41 and Shelby County 43. The area in green is the 907 acres being added to Double Oak Park, and the tan area to the right is Dunnavant Valley Park.
Double Oak Park covers about 900 acres between Shelby County 41 and Shelby County 43 — about 1.8 miles off U.S. 280 — and this new addition to the park is just northeast of the existing park, next to Shoal Creek.
“The county’s had great foresight in working on this,” said Chase Draper, president of the Birmingham Urban Mountain Pedalers.
What makes the Birmingham metro area stand out from others in the Southeast is the large tracts of land with trails, Draper said.
Shelby County is particularly blessed to have multiple parks with close to 1,000 acres and Oak Mountain State Park with 12,000 acres, he said.
“We’re incredibly grateful for Shelby County’s continuing drive to expand those parks,” Draper said.
There are a lot of people who enjoy the outdoors in the metro area, and “to continue to ensure that we’re not all crammed into one space, I think it’s hugely impactful to continue to build on what we have.”
A lot of other metro areas probably wish they could travel back in time and have this foresight to preserve land for outdoor use instead of developing it, Draper said. “You can put it further out on the perimeter, but you can’t make more of it,” he said.
The bulk of Double Oak Park was purchased by Shelby County in 2021, and the county developed hiking and biking trails throughout the property and held a ribbon cutting to celebrate the opening of the park in late 2022.
The first phase of Double Oak Park has been wildly successful, and protecting additional land in that area from development is very important, especially with it being atop a ridge, Shelby County Manager Chad Scroggins said.
“We have over 22,000 acres of public land in Shelby County, which is unheard of for a county our size,” Scroggins said. “This continues to protect areas that also allow some of our most densely populated areas to have recreational opportunities. We’re looking for other opportunities. We always are, but this one is one you just can’t pass by because you’re only paying for 25% of the total value of the property.”
The Forever Wild Land Trust should close on the sale of the property by mid-August to mid-September, and at that point, the county will move its boundary gates for Double Oak Park to include the new acreage, Scroggins said.
That likely will happen the next day, opening up old Jeep trails already on the 907 acres for public use as pedestrian and mountain bike trails, he said.
“It’ll be a great addition,” said Scroggins, who as a mountain biker himself is familiar with the trails in the existing Double Oak Park. “You can escape the world between those two valleys.”
Photo by Jon Anderson
A sign shows people the layout of trails in Double Oak Park.
Shelby County will maintain the park, and there will be an opportunity to expand the existing trail network, he said. There shouldn’t be a need to add more parking lots because the existing parking lot for Double Oak Park has plenty of space, and there is another parking lot at nearby Dunnavant Valley Park, which is connected, Scroggins said.
Shelby County Commissioner Lindsey Allison said Scroggins did a great job getting this approved by the Forever Wild board of trustees, even gaining support from one board member whom she said rarely votes in favor of anything.
Scroggins said the Forever Wild board has been a good partner and trusted Shelby County because of the successful previous partnership with the Cahaba River Park.
County Commissioner Josh Sisk said this project is a massive win for the county.
“We’ve been wanting to do it for a long time,” he said. “There’s a lot of growth along that corridor, and to be able to keep green space as public land is great.”
