Parks and Trails — Malabar, Florida

The Town of Malabar lists three parks and three trailheads: Community Park, the Disc Golf Sanctuary and Eschenberg Park, plus the Sandhill Crane, Swallow-Tailed Kite and planned Eagle's Nest trailheads (Town of Malabar).

Three of the Malabar sites are preserve land bought through the state's Florida Communities Trust. Thomas M. Eschenberg Park at 1800 Weber Road came to Malabar as a 1999 acquisition paid for by the state's Florida Communities Trust under Preservation 2000, set aside for passive, nature-based recreation (Eschenberg Park listing). Its photos on the town site show a bench and a parking area.

The Malabar Road pair sits at 1850 and 1845 Malabar Road. Community Park carries the town's sports fields and courts (Community Park listing), while the Disc Golf Sanctuary's 18 holes sit on land the same state program bought that year (disc golf listing).

The main Malabar trail entry is the Sandhill Crane Trailhead at 1400 Marie Street, the southern entrance to the Al Tuttle Trail and the eastern entrance to Malabar Scrub Sanctuary, open dawn to dusk (Town of Malabar; Trail Town slides, page 13).

The Marie Street trailhead has a pavilion, picnic tables, horse stables and ADA accessible bathrooms, the town says (Town of Malabar). Malabar's Florida Trail Town slides, published on the FDEP website, add kiosks with aerial trail maps, a fire ring, parking with room for horse trailers and an emergency hotline limited to trail navigation help that rings a committee member's phone (Trail Town slides, page 13). The same slide says trail signs there show seasonal alternate routes for summer flooding. A 2014 Recreational Trails Program grant of $90,480 paid for the ADA restroom and ADA parking there (Trail Town slides, page 14).

The Swallow-Tailed Kite Trailhead, at the northern end of Corey Road, is the door to the Cameron Preserve, a 100-acre preserve the town both owns and maintains (Swallow-Tailed Kite Trailhead listing). Florida Communities Trust money bought that land too.

Malabar's third trailhead is still being built. The Trails and Greenways Committee is developing the Eagle's Nest Trailhead for the northwestern corner of Jordan Scrub Sanctuary, a Brevard County EEL site (Town of Malabar).

The main loop of the Malabar Trail System North runs about 12 miles, and Jordan Scrub in the Malabar Trail System South adds about 8 more, per the town's Florida Trail Town slides (Trail Town slides, page 30).

The north system is built around three pieces of land. The presentation describes it as the Cameron Preserve in the middle, bordered by Malabar Scrub Sanctuary East and West, and says EEL Program trail cameras, projected over 12 months, put Malabar Scrub at a trail use rate of 38,000 visits per year (Trail Town slides, page 26). Brevard County lists Malabar Scrub at 577 acres (Brevard County EEL Program).

The paved spine is the Al Tuttle Trail. The Space Coast TPO describes it as a 10-foot-wide paved multi-use trail named for a local resident and chief trail proponent, reached from the Sand Hill Trail Head on Marie Street in Malabar, which officially opened in 2013 (Space Coast TPO).

Cameron Preserve trails have a set direction of travel. The Town of Malabar asks hikers and mountain bikers on the Yellow Trail to travel in the direction of the signage arrows, and equestrian users to travel in the opposite direction, so that hikers and bikers do not approach a horse from behind (Town of Malabar). The town says the Trails and Greenways Committee is working with state agencies on a revised management plan for the Cameron Preserve.

Malabar's trails connect into Palm Bay at a Capon Street kiosk by a pedestrian bridge and a Port Malabar Boulevard kiosk at the northernmost trailhead, both reaching the Al Tuttle Trail (slides, page 23; page 24).

The Port Malabar Boulevard entrance in Palm Bay is described as the northernmost trailhead on the Al Tuttle Trail (Trail Town slides, page 24), and the town calls the Sandhill Crane Trailhead the trail's southern entrance (Town of Malabar), so a rider can start in Palm Bay and finish at the Sandhill Crane Trailhead on Marie Street in Malabar. Inside the north system, the slides say multiple bridges were designed to keep trails at natural width (Trail Town slides, page 31).

Water access is part of the Malabar network too. A slide shows signage at kayak launch parking at Turkey Creek Sanctuary in Palm Bay, a short distance from a connecting trail of the Malabar Trail System (Trail Town slides, page 40). The FDEP statement quoted on the town's Trail Town page cites paddling trails along with walking and bicycling trails in Malabar (Town of Malabar).

The Town of Malabar was selected as a Florida Trail Town, a state recognition that comes with free Trail Town signs, stickers and publicity, the town says (Town of Malabar).

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection, as quoted on the Malabar page, said the town was designated for its vigorous efforts to establish walking, bicycling and paddling trails through its conservation areas, and pointed to its active Trails and Greenways Committee and the trail shelter it built (Town of Malabar). That shelter is the Cameron Trail Shelter, a roofed, elevated deck over a seasonal wetland (Trail Town slides, page 13). Another slide places the shelter at a main, remote intersection of several Cameron Preserve trails, designed for a possible future ADA trail connection (Trail Town slides, page 37).

The Malabar plan looks outward. Its presentation lists two future links: completing the Al Tuttle Trail south to Grant-Valkaria, and connecting the off-road trail system west to the Grapefruit Trail (Trail Town slides, page 55).

Malabar's Trails and Greenways Committee plans the trail network and meets the second Monday of each month at 6 p.m. in Town Hall, 2725 Malabar Road, with the public welcome (committee page).

The committee page lists two open alternate positions and an unofficial mission to plan, enhance and maintain the trails and greenways of the Town of Malabar while networking with neighboring communities so the trail system flows from one to another (Town of Malabar). Last verified: October 13, 2026, on the Town of Malabar website.

Public land is a large share of Malabar. The 2017 greenway count in the Trail Town slides put county EEL sanctuaries and town parks with other government land at 2,135 acres together, a third (33%) of all 6,447 acres in Malabar (Trail Town slides, page 9).