Trinidad City Council Advances $13M River Vision Project, Seeks Outside Funding

Trinidad's long-planned River Vision project cleared a critical threshold on March 9, when City Council members authorized staff and consultants to begin chasing what could amount to $5 million to $7 million in outside funding toward the $13 million riverfront development.

The authorization came after Jeff Shoemaker, former longtime executive director of The Greenway Foundation, delivered an extensive presentation to the council during the work session. Shoemaker was direct about the financial reality facing projects of this scale: "projects of this size rarely succeed on local dollars alone." His prescription was equally blunt. Communities that successfully complete large riverfront developments, he told council members, do so by aggressively pursuing "other people's money," a phrase he used explicitly to mean grants and philanthropic funding rather than new taxes.

With that framework in place, council members agreed to authorize staff and consultants, including Shoemaker and a consultant identified only as Pearson, to begin approaching potential funders. The team was also directed to continue researching land ownership along the river corridor and to develop phased cost options for the project. No specific funders were identified in the March 9 session, and no timeline for the fundraising effort or project phases was made public.

The River Vision project has drawn support from a range of local stakeholders, including downtown business owners, river-access advocates, and local planning consultants. The corridor's development has been a subject of community planning conversations for years, though the March 9 work session marked the council's formal commitment to an aggressive outside-funding strategy as the path forward.

The $5 million to $7 million outside funding target represents a substantial portion of the project's $13 million estimated cost, though the sources available did not specify how the two figures relate, whether the outside funding would cover a defined phase or serve as a supplement to local dollars, or what local contribution the city anticipates.

Council members also gave staff and consultants the green light to map land ownership along the corridor, a step that will likely prove foundational before any grant applications can advance. Phased cost options, once developed, could give the council flexibility to pursue incremental funding rather than waiting to secure the full $13 million before breaking ground.