Seminole County opens new Lake Monroe Trail Loop segment in Sanford

A new trail segment now gives Sanford residents a safer way to move between the RiverWalk area and Celery Avenue, closing part of a gap in the Lake Monroe Trail Loop and pushing the county closer to a continuous route around Lake Monroe. The 12-foot-wide multi-use concrete path along Celery Avenue connects the RiverWalk corridor toward State Road 415, with Phase 2 still needed to finish the remaining link.

Leaders from Seminole County, the City of Sanford and the Florida Department of Transportation gathered for a ribbon-cutting on the finished Phase 1 work. The project was paid for with Penny Sales Tax dollars and FDOT’s Local Agency Program, a funding mix that put county and state transportation money behind a local recreation and mobility connection.

Seminole County says the trail project is part of its effort to complete a missing piece of the Lake Monroe Trail Loop and extend Sanford’s RiverWalk farther east. In September 2024, the county and city completed construction of a 12-foot-wide multi-use concrete trail along Celery Avenue from Mellonville Avenue to South Elliot Street. The county’s project page says Phase 1 was estimated to reach completion in spring 2026.

The new segment matters because it sits inside a much larger downtown and waterfront system that has been taking shape for decades. Sanford says its RiverWalk began as a sidewalk concept in 1995 and grew into a nearly 5-mile trail on the southern shore of Lake Monroe. Phase I opened in 2004, Phase II followed in 2018, and the final RiverWalk phase linked the trail to the 210-mile Florida Coast-to-Coast Trail while helping complete a 26-mile loop around Lake Monroe.

That history gives the Celery Avenue connection broader weight than a single path segment. Sanford’s RiverWalk won the International Making Cities Livable award in 2009, and a 2015 Lake Monroe Waterfront and Downtown Sanford Community Redevelopment Plan describes more than 20 years of partnership between Seminole County and the City of Sanford aimed at revitalizing the waterfront and driving private-sector investment.

The next hurdle is Phase 2, which Seminole County says would design and then build a multi-use trail along Celery Avenue from about 343 feet east of Sipes Avenue to Chickasaw Drive. Until that stretch is built, the Lake Monroe loop remains incomplete, and residents will still have to navigate the remaining break between the newly opened segment and the larger trail network around Lake Monroe.