Northfield Center Township officials have floated a plan to carve a trail through largely undeveloped land behind Macedonia Commons and eventually tie it into Summit Metro Parks' sprawling Bike & Hike Trail, a project the township says could open up outdoor recreation to roughly 30,000 residents across the broader Nordonia Hills area. The idea is still in its earliest stages, with no cost estimate or construction timeline attached, but township leaders say it reflects years of thinking about how to get more people outside and moving.
Trustee Russell Mazzola presented the trail concept to the Summit Metro Parks board on October 13, framing it as a long-overdue opportunity rather than a fully formed proposal, according to Cleveland.com. Mazzola asked Summit Metro Parks to consider partnering with the township to develop and maintain a trail on the jointly owned Conservancy District, land that sits directly behind the Macedonia Commons retail complex near Target, according to Akron Legal News. Mazzola described the project as a good investment for Northfield Center and surrounding communities, and said more trails could spur additional activity and business in the area.
The Conservancy District is jointly owned by Northfield Center Township and the City of Macedonia, two communities that have shared local income tax revenue through a Joint Economic Development District since 1995. That existing partnership, which splits revenue from commercial wages and business net profits generated within the shared district, gives the two governments a longstanding framework for managing land and money together even as the trail idea remains unsettled between them.
Mapping Out Easements and Early-Stage Features
Preliminary maps identify up to six potential easements that could connect the property to the Bike & Hike Trail, though the proposed route and number of easements could still change as planning progresses. Early concepts for the trail include exercise stations such as pull-up and balance bars, but those features remain preliminary and unconfirmed. The township has said the trail would be built in phases, with a long-term goal of eventually linking into the existing regional network.
Summit Metro Parks' Bike & Hike Trail runs roughly 34 miles through Summit County, stretching from Sagamore Hills through Boston Heights, Peninsula, Hudson, Stow and Munroe Falls. The paved route opened its first section in 1972 as one of the nation's earliest rails-to-trails conversions, built atop the abandoned corridors of the Lake Erie & Pittsburgh Railway and the Akron, Bedford & Cleveland Railroad, according to the trail-mapping site TrailLink. The trail also connects directly to Cuyahoga Valley National Park's Towpath Trail via a connector route at Holzhauer Road near the Red Lock Trailhead, according to the National Park Service.
What Each Side Would Bring to the Table
Under the concept pitched to the parks board, Northfield Center Township wants to partner with Summit Metro Parks for trail design and maintenance expertise, while the township would handle local coordination, community outreach and access to the property itself. The two sides still need to work out long-term maintenance responsibilities and who would be accountable for what, a detail that remains unresolved. Township officials said grants could be one funding option once the project advances further.
Mazzola said the October 13 presentation was meant to introduce the concept, answer questions and gauge interest rather than seek a formal board decision, and township officials said they planned to meet with Metro Parks staff in the coming weeks to discuss possible next steps. For its part, Summit Metro Parks told Cleveland.com it had not yet had an opportunity to discuss or consider the township's proposal, underscoring that this is not a final trail plan.
Summit Metro Parks itself is no small operation: the agency manages more than 16,000 acres across 16 parks and two nature centers, with over 150 miles of trails drawing approximately 5 million annual visits, according to the park district's own strategic planning materials. Founded in 1921, it is the second-oldest metropolitan park district in Ohio, giving Northfield Center a well-established potential partner if talks move forward.
Survey Shows Strong Appetite for Trail Connections
The trail concept comes as Northfield Center Township works to update its comprehensive plan, which is nearly 30 years old. Residents weighing in on that update identified trails and pedestrian connections as major priorities. A related survey drew responses from 87 people, and about two-thirds expressed interest in expanding bicycle and pedestrian facilities township-wide.
A follow-up question, answered by 59 respondents, found even stronger enthusiasm for specific connections: 83 percent wanted trails linking to Summit Metro Parks, and 92 percent wanted connections to Cuyahoga Valley National Park. About half also wanted trails connecting neighborhoods to one another or to local parks, suggesting residents see this less as a single project and more as a network still waiting to be built.
The push for a Bike & Hike link isn't happening in isolation. Northfield Center borders the Brandywine Preserve, a 202-acre property that West Creek Conservancy acquired along Brandywine Creek in Boston Heights and Northfield Center Township to protect wetland forests and reduce downstream flooding in Northfield Center and Macedonia, according to West Creek Conservancy. Regional funding is also in play: the Akron Metropolitan Area Transportation Study has awarded nearly $29 million in transportation grants through 2032 to support trail, sidewalk and transit projects across northern Summit County, as Hoodline previously reported.
Neighboring Hudson offers a glimpse of what a fully funded version of this ambition might look like. Hudson City Council approved a $10.7 million sidewalk and trail priority plan running through 2030 that specifically prioritizes building neighborhood path connections to the Bike & Hike Trail along Barlow Road. Northfield Center Township, by contrast, recorded just 5,597 residents in the 2020 U.S. Census across roughly 5.8 square miles, a far smaller tax base than Hudson's as it weighs how to pay for its own trail ambitions.
That funding question looms especially large given that Northfield Center voters are simultaneously being asked to approve a separate 2-mill road levy this November to cover $485,000 in street repairs, a reminder that trail dollars would have to compete with more basic infrastructure needs. For now, the trail remains a concept introduced to gauge interest rather than a funded project, with the township and Summit Metro Parks still working out whether, and how, to move it forward together.
