The Town Council has approved a contract with Blucor Contracting in the amount of $2,162,956 for construction of the long-awaited trailhead in the Preserve adjacent to Adero Canyon.

The council was unanimous in its vote at the Oct. 3 regular session.

Community Services Director Rachael Goodwin said staff was able to use “value engineering” to find places to reduce Blucor’s original bid. The company was the low bidder and was also the contractor for MCO Properties for improvements to the Adero Canyon development.

The contractor will have 224 days from the “notice to proceed” until substantial completion of the project, and 254 days for final completion, Goodwin said. That should result in completion sometime around early summer.

Funding for the project will include $1.8 million collected in development fees with the remainder coming as an allocation from the town’s Capital Improvement Fund.

The trailhead has been a long-time coming. An 11-member task force was formed in 1995 to begin preparing a strategy for the Preserve, which was taking shape through negotiations with MCO Properties and land purchase.

The council formed the McDowell Mountain Preservation Commission in 1996 and, in 1997, voters approved General Purpose bonds for the purchase of land to augment other land acquisition.

Approximately 950 acres was eventually organized in the Fountain Hills Sonoran Preserve. There are 200 acres of that total within the town limits that are owned by the Scottsdale McDowell Sonoran Preserve.

Over the years the Sonoran Conservancy of Fountain Hills, a group established through the MMPC, has worked to build hiking trails within the Preserve land. To date there are nearly 10 miles of hand-constructed trails (six different trails) within the Preserve with most converging at the planned trailhead.

These trails provide connectivity and easy access to hundreds of miles of trails for hiking and biking throughout McDowell Mountain Park and the Scottsdale Sonoran Preserve.