Malabar Community Park — Malabar, Florida

Malabar Community Park, at 1850 Malabar Road and open dawn to dusk, has ball fields, courts, a playground, a fitness park, restrooms, a main pavilion and a bridge over its lake, according to the Town of Malabar (Town of Malabar).

Malabar Community Park is where the town lists its sports facilities. The Town of Malabar lists a baseball and softball field, a soccer pitch, a basketball court and a tennis court, and its photo gallery adds a batting cage (Town of Malabar). The playground carries the name Huggins Family Playground on its sign, and a separate building and equipment area make up the Malabar fitness park.

The lake sets the layout of the Malabar Road park. A bridge crosses the water, a picnic table looks out over it, and the town's gallery shows a sandhill crane at the lake's edge (park gallery). The burn pit shown in the same gallery is labeled burn permit required, so a fire there needs a burn permit first.

Malabar Community Park is one of three ways into the east side of Malabar Scrub Sanctuary, along with the Sandhill Trailhead and the Capon Street Pedestrian Bridge from Palm Bay, the Town of Malabar says (Town of Malabar).

The east side reached from the park holds two main trails, the White loop and the Red loop, and the town describes that section as mostly high and dry ground with well marked single track for hiking, biking and horseback riding (Town of Malabar scrub page). The sanctuary is managed by the Brevard County Environmentally Endangered Lands Program, not by the town, and Malabar Community Park's own page notes that split (Town of Malabar).

The Sandhill Trailhead is the other Malabar entrance to the east side named by the town. The Town of Malabar's Florida Trail Town presentation calls the Sand Hill Trailhead #1 at 1400 Marie Street the main Malabar trailhead and lists kiosks with aerial trail maps, ADA restrooms and ADA parking, a covered pavilion, a fire ring and parking with space for horse trailers (Town of Malabar presentation, page 13). The same presentation lists a 2014 FDEP grant of $90,480 in Recreational Trails Program funds for that trailhead's ADA restroom and ADA parking (page 14), and says the main loop of the Malabar Trail System North has about 12 miles of trails (page 30).

The park's restrooms serve the sanctuary as well. Brevard County lists the Malabar Scrub Sanctuary at 577 acres and says restrooms are available at the adjacent Malabar Community Park (Brevard County EEL Program). The county lists a separate sanctuary address, 1501 Malabar Woods Boulevard, with day use only, every day of the week.

The trail system beyond the park is long. The FWC birding trail listing counts 8.3 miles of sandy scrub trails for hiking and biking at Malabar Scrub and six miles of equestrian trails, and it gives daily hours of 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. for the sanctuary (FWC). Those sanctuary hours differ from the park's dawn to dusk schedule, so the two Malabar sites keep different clocks.

The rules also change at the sanctuary line. On Malabar Scrub, Brevard County prohibits pets, smoking, alcohol and motorized vehicles, bans hunting, and asks visitors to stay on the trail and leave plants, animals and cultural resources in place (Brevard County EEL Program). Those county rules apply once a walker crosses from the Malabar Road park onto the White or Red loop.

The park reaches only half of the sanctuary. The Town of Malabar says Malabar Scrub is bisected by the Richard E. Cameron Sr. & Volunteers Preserve into an east and a west side; the west side is entered instead from the Briar Creek Blvd Trailhead, from the Al Tuttle Trail via Port Malabar Blvd, or from a trailhead on Englar Ave in Palm Bay (Town of Malabar). The west side is known for two long trail bridges over a tributary of Turkey Creek and has a Red loop, a Blue loop and a Yellow Trail that connects to the Cameron Preserve.

Fire shapes what walkers see past the park. Brevard County says the Malabar Scrub trails pass through several areas recently treated with prescribed fire, and that the sanctuary is a refuge for the Florida scrub-jay, gopher tortoise and Eastern indigo snake, all species that benefit from controlled burns (Brevard County EEL Program).

The Malabar Disc Golf Sanctuary is an 18-hole course in a nature preserve at 1845 Malabar Road, open dawn to dusk, listed by the town alongside Community Park at 1850 Malabar Road (Town of Malabar).

The Malabar course plays through a nature preserve. The town lists concrete tee boxes, chainstar baskets, some elevated tee boxes, tight fairways and plenty of shade, plus a pavilion, an informational kiosk and a restroom (Town of Malabar). A course map and a combined course layout and score card are posted on the same town page.

The land came through a state program. The Malabar disc golf site was purchased by the Florida Communities Trust Preservation 2000 Program in cooperation with the Town of Malabar, dedicated for public use as a passive natural resource based recreation site, and acquired in 1999 (Town of Malabar).

Yes: the Town of Malabar Park Reservation Form reserves a designated area in any Malabar park, trailhead or conservation area for the appropriate fee, with the Town Manager approving or denying each request (Town of Malabar reservation form).

The applicant on a Malabar reservation accepts responsibility for any damages and clean-up costs, and signs that they have received Malabar Ordinance 00-06 and agree to its terms (reservation form). The form recommends that groups bring extra toilet paper and hand towels because the park restrooms are set up only for normal use.

Larger events need a second Malabar permit. The Special Activity Permit Application covers block parties, carnivals, concerts or festivals and foot or bike races, lists equipment such as sound amplification, tents and temporary restrooms, and sets the fee for a special activity at $100.00 (Town of Malabar special activity permit). A site plan must be attached showing the event location.

The Town of Malabar, at 2725 Malabar Road with phone 321-727-7764, runs Community Park, and its Parks and Recreation Board next meets on Wednesday, October 21, 2026 (Town of Malabar).

Last verified: October 13, 2026, on the Town of Malabar website. Reservation forms for Malabar Community Park carry a Town Manager approval line, and the scrub trails reached from the park remain under Brevard County's EEL Program, which lists (321) 255-4466 for Malabar Scrub (Brevard County).

Community Park is one piece of Malabar's public land base. The Town of Malabar's Florida Trail Town application, hosted by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, counted 1,072 acres of Malabar parks and government land and 1,063 acres of EEL Program land as of 2017, together 2,135 acres or 33% of the town's 6,447 acres (Town of Malabar presentation, page 9). The same presentation places Malabar on the Indian River Lagoon and says the town maintains its rural environment while bordering the population center of southern Brevard County (pages 7 and 8).