If you've walked the Loveland Recreation Trail south from 43rd Street, you know this stretch. The paved loop crosses 43rd, then turns onto residential streets through the Glen Isle subdivision. It drops you onto a narrow four-foot sidewalk on the east side of Wilson Avenue, and you cross Wilson at West 35th Street. In a May 2026 Parks and Recreation Commission update, the City of Loveland's own planning team calls that route "confusing and sometimes unsafe."
Since Monday, Oct. 26, that crossing at 35th has been closed for construction. The fence going up there is the start of a bigger change. Two separate projects meet at that corner. One is a developer connecting 35th Street west across Wilson into a new subdivision. The other is a City plan to move the trail off neighborhood streets and onto wide paths along Wilson. Together they will redraw how the northwest part of the trail loop works for everyone in the Wilson corridor, including the neighborhoods near Hunter's Run and Rist Benson Reservoir.
Getting around the closure this week
The City's Parks & Rec Detours & Closures page, last updated Oct. 22, says the crossing will be closed for at least a week. For trail users, the detour works out to this:
- Use the existing signalized crossing at 29th Street and Wilson Avenue.
- Expect to share the east side of Wilson between 29th and 35th. The City asks people there to use caution and slow down.
- Before heading out, check that same City page for updates. A week is the minimum, so the reopening date may change.
That stretch of east-side sidewalk is the same four-foot strip the City's planners singled out in May. With 35th closed, more runners, cyclists and dog walkers will be packed onto it for the next week or more. Paved trail hours haven't changed: 6 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. daily, non-motorized use only, with Type I and II e-bikes allowed.
Two projects, one corner
The closure notice says "35th Street and Wilson intersection improvements" will continue through early 2027. To see why the work lands at this intersection, you have to look at two projects at once.
| Lee Farm Phase One | Wilson Ave & 43rd St Multi-Use Path | |
|---|---|---|
| Who manages it | The developer, which oversees contractors and the schedule | City of Loveland Open Lands and Trails Division |
| What it builds at 35th | Connects 35th Street across North Wilson into the new subdivision and extends New Castle Drive north | A controlled trail crossing of Wilson at 35th, one of three |
| Timing on record | Started Dec. 1, 2025; road estimated for fall 2026 | Design through 2026; construction estimated to begin in 2027 |
The road side: Lee Farm
Lee Farm, also called Pinecrest, is a 244-acre subdivision west of Wilson Avenue, between the Buckhorn Village and Hunter's Run neighborhoods. It has been planned for a long time. City Council approved its annexation and zoning in 2006, and the road-and-lot sketch plat was approved on Dec. 18, 2023.
Phase One covers 67.5 acres west of North Wilson: road construction plus 137 single-family homes and 88 duplexes. Phase Two, which is under review, would add 92 single-family homes and 80 townhomes on 95.8 acres south of Buck First Subdivision. Up to 1,031 homes are proposed for the full site over several years.
The 35th Street connection is part of Phase One. At a June 2025 Transportation Advisory Board meeting, City staff said Hunter's Run would gain access to 35th Street once the roads were built. Staff also said the City was trying to move 35th Street construction forward as Lee Farm advanced. For neighbors west of Wilson, that means a new east-west way in and out, crossing Wilson at the same spot the trail does.
On the active site, construction is allowed from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Saturday. The City asks everyone except construction workers to stay off the site at all times, even when no work is happening.
The trail side: leaving Glen Isle behind
The second project explains why the City is treating 35th and Wilson as a long-term trail crossing and not a temporary inconvenience. According to the City's Wilson Ave and 43rd St Multi-Use Path project page, the existing concrete sidewalks will be widened to 10 feet in two places. One is the south side of 43rd Street, from Glen Isle Drive to Wilson. The other is both sides of Wilson Avenue, south to 29th Street.
The City gives two reasons. The wider paths create a more direct connection for the Recreation Trail Loop, with less reliance on the winding route through the Emerald Glen neighborhood. They also add three controlled crossings of Wilson and discourage mid-block crossings. The May 14, 2026 Parks and Recreation Commission packet describes the new route plainly:
"The proposed project will abandon the route through the subdivision in favor of a new 10' wide trail along 43rd Street, taking users directly to the intersection of Wilson Ave and 43rd Street where safe, signalized crossing options can be provided."
From 43rd, the new alignment turns south along the west side of Wilson to rejoin the existing trail. The Commission packet says wider sidewalks on the east side of Wilson, and connections all the way to 29th, will come "if funding allows."
Who is paying, and how big the trail project is
The trail work is a funded project with a set size. The Commission packet says it began with a $1.1 million CDOT grant aimed at multimodal trail options and trail user safety, with AVI Engineers developing the design. The City's project page names the grant as a Carbon Reduction Program grant. The City's match comes from its Trails CEF and the Conservation Trust Fund.
The North Front Range Metropolitan Planning Organization's transportation improvement program, current as of July 2, 2026, lists the "Wilson Ave Multiuse Path & Crossing" at a total of $1,674,718. It describes 7,685 feet of multimodal trail along Wilson from 29th to 43rd, then east to Glen Isle Drive, with crossings of Wilson at 43rd, 35th and 29th. That's roughly a mile and a half of trail, centered on the corner that just closed.
Together, the grant and the City's matching contributions pay for designing all five phases and starting construction on Phase 1. Phase 1 covers the 43rd Street improvements and part of the planned Wilson Avenue path upgrades. The rest of the Wilson work is in the later phases.
What is firm and what is still an estimate
The dates attached to this corner come from different documents written at different times. They are best read as a sequence:
- Firm: Lee Farm Phase One site work began Dec. 1, 2025.
- Firm: The trail crossing at 35th and Wilson closed Oct. 26 for at least one week.
- Estimated: The City's Lee Farm page says the 35th Street connection is "currently estimated" to be done in fall 2026. It also notes that the developer sets the timeline and that schedules may change.
- Estimated: The City's October update says the 35th and Wilson intersection improvements continue through early 2027.
- Estimated: Construction on the Wilson trail realignment is estimated to begin in 2027.
The City hasn't published the finished design of the 35th and Wilson intersection: whether it gets a new signal, turn lanes, or a particular crosswalk treatment. Until it does, the safest assumption for a weekday commute or a Saturday loop is that work around this corner continues into 2027. The Detours & Closures page is where any change will show up first.
Using the loop through the holidays
The rest of the northwest trail is open, and the season's calendar runs right past this corner. On Thanksgiving morning, Nov. 26, the Huffin' for Stuffin' 2-Mile Fun Run is listed at Mehaffey Park, with 8 or 8:30 a.m. starts. Proceeds and food donations benefit KidsPak, and the organizer's listing is the place to confirm details before race day. At Mehaffey Park itself, the City has removed the playground bridge over safety concerns and plans to install a new rigid bridge, though no date is set. The spray features are closed for the season.
Farther north, the trail passes through Emerald Glen Natural Area at Wilson and 43rd. The 43rd Street segment that leads to it is part of the City's first construction phase. Today's walk south from there still follows the Glen Isle streets and the narrow Wilson sidewalk. Within a couple of construction seasons, if the City's plans hold, it should be a 10-foot path with signalized crossings the whole way.
If you live along the Wilson corridor and want to know how the new 35th Street connection and the trail reroute could affect your street, your commute, or your home's value over the next few years, Kristin Tibbs follows these projects closely and is happy to walk through the City's plans with you. Let's Connect.
