Drive past the town square on a weekday this month and you will hit orange fencing near W. Walnut Street where the empty lot used to sit. That lot is becoming a trailhead, and the trailhead is the last piece of a project Polk City has been talking about since before some of its newest subdivisions had streets. The Polk City Junction Trail, a 1.25-mile paved connector that finally links the High Trestle Trail to the Neal Smith Trail, is under active construction right now, and so is the 57-acre Regional Park a few blocks north. Most residents assume these are two separate stories moving at two separate speeds. They are not. They share a property line, a construction season, and in at least one case, the same easement paperwork. That overlap is the part worth understanding before the ribbon cutting.
A Decade of Meetings for 1.25 Miles
The idea for a trail connecting Polk City's two neighboring trail systems first got studied back in April 2017. The first formal meeting between the city and Polk County Conservation happened on July 31, 2018. City records show the mayor's meeting with the county on this single project in October 2024 was his 57th on the subject. Mayor Steve Karsjen has been pushing it since he and his wife moved to town in 2017 and discovered, as avid cyclists, that there was no safe way to pedal from Polk City to the High Trestle Trail without riding on county roads.
That gap always seemed strange given the geography. The High Trestle Trail sits a couple of miles northeast of town. The Neal Smith Trail runs along Saylorville Lake on the west side. Polk City sat in the middle of two of the metro's most popular trails with no connector between them.
The trail now has an official name, approved by the Polk County Conservation Board on August 13, 2025: the Polk City Junction Trail, honoring the Polk City Junction railroad spur that ran through the area starting in 1875. It is a fitting name for a route whose whole purpose is making Polk City the junction between two trail systems instead of the town in between them.
Why the Route Doesn't Run Straight
If you have looked at early trail maps, the current route may look like a detour. It is one, on purpose. The original plan kept the trail closer to N. and S. 3rd Street for most of its length. Unexpected construction costs forced the city to redraw the route so it curves past the town square at N. 2nd Street and W. Broadway instead of bypassing it.
That decision means cyclists coming off the High Trestle Trail will ride within feet of downtown storefronts rather than around them. Dustin Comer, general manager at Papa's Pizzeria on the square, has said he expects a lot more bikers coming through town once the connection opens. It is a small routing choice with a real commercial consequence, and it is the kind of detail you only notice if you have watched the plans change over several years rather than seeing the finished trail appear all at once.
Where Each Section Actually Stands
Progress has been uneven by design, since different segments depend on different funding sources and different landowners. As of the city council's July 2026 meeting packet, here is where things stood:
| Segment | Status as of July 2026 |
|---|---|
| Phase 2 (across the school site near Big Creek Elementary) | Complete, awaiting seed establishment |
| Phase 1 (along N. 3rd St., tied to the Northside Drive realignment) | Under construction, Change Order #2 and Pay App #3 approved |
| Phases 4 and 5 (Kiwanis Park to the Square, through Deer Haven and Crossroads at the Lakes) | Active, Caliber Concrete building north to south toward the trailhead |
| Phase 7 | Underway, Pay App #3 approved for $6,723.25 |
| County connector (High Trestle Trail Oasis to city limits) | Under construction, expected to finish by the end of 2026 |
The county's portion alone is estimated at roughly $1.4 million and is being built by Polk County Conservation southwest from the High Trestle Trail Oasis into town. Put together, the pieces that looked separate on paper for years are now converging on the same finish line.
The trailhead itself will include parking, green space, picnic tables, a shelter, and a restroom facility once finished. Until then, the city has asked its contractor not to use the full lot for staging, since that same empty space currently serves as overflow parking for the town square.
The Park Voters Rejected, Built Anyway
A few blocks north, near the intersection of NE 7th Street and Vista Lake, sits the second half of this story. The city council purchased 57 acres there for a park with athletic fields and walking trails. In November 2024, residents voted down a $10 million bond referendum that would have funded it, a measure that would have raised property taxes by $90 per $100,000 of assessed value.
The park did not disappear after that vote. It reappeared in the July 13, 2026 council packet as a construction contract. The council approved a contract and bond for Polk City Regional Park Phase 1 with Graphite Construction Group for general construction and landscaping, along with separate awards to Van Maanen Electric for electrical and low-voltage work and Smart Concrete Solutions for parking, sidewalks, and trail paving. The city found a way to build in phases rather than all at once, which is a meaningfully different funding path than the bond that voters rejected.
One Piece of Land, Two Projects
Here is the detail that ties the whole story together, and it is easy to miss if you only follow one project or the other. The same July 2026 meeting packet includes a resolution for acquiring easements for both the Regional Park and the Junction Trail on property owned by the North Polk Community School District, covering both an additional trail easement and a public utility easement along NE 7th Street.
That is not a coincidence of scheduling. The trail and the park sit on adjoining school-owned land near Big Creek Elementary, and the city is negotiating access to both through the same landowner in the same season. When residents see construction equipment near the elementary school this year, it is very likely serving two projects at once rather than one.
What This Means Walking Around Town This Fall
None of this changes anything about buying or selling a house in Polk City. What it does change is what to expect walking, biking, or driving around town for the rest of the year. The trailhead lot near the square will keep functioning as informal overflow parking even while it is also a staging area, so expect it to feel tighter during Town Square events through the fall. Caliber Concrete's Phase 4 and 5 work is moving north to south toward that same trailhead, which means the stretch through Deer Haven and Crossroads at the Lakes is the one most likely to see closures in the coming weeks.
Karsjen has said he is very pleased with the progress on getting the trail finished, and the city's own updates point to a ribbon cutting planned for fall 2026. Given how many separate funding streams, school district easements, and construction crews had to line up to get here, that timeline is worth watching rather than assuming. The pieces that took nine years to plan are, for the first time, actually all under construction at once.
If you are already part of this community and thinking ahead to what a home near the new trailhead or the Regional Park might be worth once both are finished, that is a conversation worth having before the ribbon cutting rather than after. Scot Bergman has spent years tracking how Polk City and Ankeny grow block by block, and is always glad to talk through what a project like this means for your specific street. Let's Connect.
