Ni Village

Spotsylvanians welcome first part of Ni River Trail
June 7, 2010 12:36 am

The Salamander Loop, the first phase of the Ni River Trail, was created to help inspire local residents to learn about nature and fitness.
BY JEFF BRANSCOME

Photo taken by LDP (not a part of article).

Chris Folger walked about 100 feet along a wooded trail in Spotsylvania County. She stopped and looked at her surroundings. “It’s such a different feel,” she said. “Route 1 is right over there, but yet you get back here, and you just have this sense of being in nature.”

Folger, who chairs the Spotsylvania Greenways Initiative, on Saturday welcomed more than 200 people to the opening of the first phase of the Ni River Trail. The event coincided with National Trails Day.

The 1.75-mile Salamander Loop is behind River Run Business Park off U.S. 1, across from Massaponax High School. It’s on land owned by Luck Development Partners and has a half-mile handicapped-accessible path covered with stone dust.

The trail also has ponds and more than 20 types of trees, including Virginia pine, American holly, white dogwood and Southern red oak.

“It took a good chunk of the community to make it happen, and that’s nice,” said Spotsylvania Greenways Initiative member Paul Gehring.  Since February, he said, as many as 100 volunteers have spent 2,000 hours preparing the trail. Boy Scout Troop 165 of Spotsylvania, for instance, constructed two wooden bridges, Folger said.

Folger’s grandson, 9-year-old Aidan, and his friend, 9-year-old Eliot Baker, searched for frogs in wetlands near one of the bridges. At one point Aidan stuck his entire hand into the muck, but turned up nothing. Earlier, Aidan said, he contributed a frog to a special attraction at Saturday’s event featuring salamanders, turtles and other creatures.
“There’s lots of wildlife out here, and it’s not completely polluted,” Eliot said. “It’s fun to find stuff and catch it.”
“And to get dirty,” Aidan added.

Spotsylvania resident Jennifer Cline came to the trail opening with her daughters, Katie, 7, and Julie, 9. Cline, who is a nurse at Mary Washington Home Health, spends a lot of time on the road and said she hopes to walk the trail after work. She said she passes it on her way home. “I have been waiting to have somewhere to go hiking near me for so long,” Cline said. “To have trails so close to home is just awesome.”

Folger plans for the Ni River Trail and a network of other pathways to connect to the four battlefields within Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. The next phase is an approximately 3-mile path to Patriot Park on Smith Station Road. For now, Folger said, she’s happy creating the trail one mile at a time.
“You can forget the cares of the day and be at peace.”

Jeff Branscome: 540/374-5402
Email: jbranscome@freelancestar.com
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The Salamander Loop
The Spotsylvania Greenways Initiative, which created the trail, is a nonprofit founded to locate, preserve and create greenways in the county. The trail is called the Salamander Loop because volunteers found unusual salamanders in a vernal pond on the property.
It is open daily from sunrise to sunset and has several rules, including:
Visitors must stay on the designated paths and take their trash home with them.
No picking flowers or damaging plants.
No smoking or alcohol.
No hunting, fishing, camping or fires.
No loud music.
Pets must be on a leash, and owners must pick up after them.
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Copyright 2010 The Free Lance-Star Publishing Company.

Map of planned Ni Village areas

1. East Campus
2. Smith’s Mill Education Center
3. Lewis Square
4. Tuppelo Steppes
5. The Slip
6. Market Square
7. Ni Terrace
8. Ni Basin
9. Alfred’s Bend

Artists rendering of Ni Village's green infrastructure

Above is an image that conceptually describes the form of the green infrastructure designed and intergrated into the community. Pedestrian ways, watercourses and drainage ways are aligned allowing the walker to trace the path of water flow from the top of the watershed in the community to the tributaries of the Ni River.

Along this route are stormwater mitigation and conservation measures such as green roofs, gutters and rain water cisterns at the upper end of the watershed in the village or campus. Rain gardens, falls, wetlands and retention ponds would be found at the lower end route toward the woodland edge. Lining the whole system are native plants and wildlife habitats in the form of wetlands, meadows and the structuring elements of canopy trees and hedges.

This progression of environmental conditions along pedestrian ways inspires closer understanding and appreciation of the watershed and nature. Educational signage at key points help illuminate this design.

For the past four years, Luck Development Partners, has been guided by members of the Spotsylvania community, our partners’ and Luck Stone Corporation’s 85-plus year commitment, to achieve environmental excellence. With this as a guiding focus and with the integration of history, culture, and landscape, we have created a visionary town and innovative community in Spotsylvania: Ni Village.

An interconnected community, Ni Village is designed to provide an unparalleled quality of life, offer a sustainable center for commerce, enhance environmental stewardship and deliver a life-long learning experience for the people who live, recreate and work there.

Located adjacent to a working quarry in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, Ni Village is a place of innovative research and higher education, where local school policies and programs are created and where local entrepreneurs operate their business and provide services. Over the course of time, Ni Village will serve as a point of connection to the surrounding community and quarry sites.