The property was once going to be a neighborhood of over 1,000 homes.
Today, Alachua County park officials are actively restoring Turkey Creek Preserve as a means of improving the county’s environmental integrity of Alachua County. The county and its Department of Environmental Protection now has plans — two years after the preserve’s opening — to begin building a boardwalk in the coming months.
The preserve, located in northwest Gainesville with the main trailhead at 6300 NW 93rd Ave., features three different loops and a fitness trail, each varying in distance and difficulty.
The county bought the 376-acre parcel for $4 million in December 2009 from local real estate developer Robert Howe and his company. Whether residents realized it or not, they helped generate revenue for the purchase.
The Alachua County Forever Program — the voter-approved initiative to acquire, improve, and manage environmentally sensitive land — used the Wild Spaces Public Places sales tax funds and a $1.5 million Florida Communities Trust Grant to acquire the land.
“Our program started in 2000 with a bond,” said Ryan Kennelly, a senior environmental specialist for Alachua County. “That bond money was then used to acquire properties.”
The referendum was funded again by voters in 2008 and again in 2016. Voters in 2022 signed up for another decade of the park-supporting tax, extending it through Dec. 31, 2032.
Even with the extension to help buy more land, there is still a constant need to tend to the land on which the county has already started the restoration process.
On Saturday, environmental expert and wildlife photographer Michael Drummond led a guided hike through various trails at Turkey Creek Preserve.
Alachua County environmental specialists Kennelly, Andy Natwick and Wesley Wells joined Drummond, as did 21 hikers. Lisa Morin was one of them.
“I needed a study break,” said Morin, a University of Florida PhD student from Fort Myers studying special education. “I came across the preserve on Facebook and thought I would check it out.”
Morin asked Wells how Turkey Creek Preserve came to be.
“A lot of the land that our program gets nominated to us is usually an old development that didn’t happen or old property of timber companies,” Wells said.
He said they first go in with a mechanical treatment and mulch the forest down. Forestry mulching is a land-clearing method that uses a machine to cut, grind, and clear vegetation.
“We’ll then come back in and replant longleaf trees and wire grass,” he said.
There is also a constant cycle of needing fire to restore the land.
“If you don’t have fire coming in, oaks and more successional hardwoods are going to start dominating,” said Wells. “The more we burn, the more the junkier stuff will go away, and more grasses and pines will take over.”
However, there is a strategy to burn the land they acquire.
Wells said they like their fires “low and slow” being very intentional with their ignition patterns, constantly adjusting them during burns.
During the hike, Kennelly pointed out a spot in the Hammock Loop trail that backs up to a marsh connected to the creek.
Kennelly said they are working on getting permits from the water management district and waiting on a grant from the DEP that will give them a sizable amount of funding.
They plan to build an 80-foot-long boardwalk that will put you out past the trees and into the middle of the marsh.
Kennelly said that they hope to hear back on the grant in July and start the building process after that.
“We have such supportive citizens of land conservation,” Kennelly said. “There are so many places to get out and recreate, and I’m happy to be a part of it.”
