Florida Trail Town — Malabar, Florida

Malabar holds a Florida Trail Town designation from the FDEP Office of Greenways and Trails, a state program for towns where hikers, cyclists, riders and paddlers can step off a trail and use the community (FDEP Trail Town Program).

FDEP describes a Trail Town as a destination that benefits economically and socially from the trail users who come off a hiking, biking, equestrian or paddling trail to enjoy local amenities and heritage (FDEP). The Town of Malabar says recognized towns receive free Trail Town signs, stickers and publicity (Town of Malabar). The town's description lists no grant money among those benefits.

Communities apply through FDEP. The program page tells a community seeking recognition to start by contacting its Office of Greenways and Trails Regional Coordinator and offers a fillable Trail Town Self-Assessment and an information guide (FDEP). FDEP also publishes Trail Town story maps; the one for Malabar, dated August 7, 2024, calls it an east central Trail Town on the Space Coast (FDEP story map).

Malabar was an early pick. The FDEP master map numbers Malabar 3 on its list of Florida Trail Towns, after Dunedin and Titusville (FDEP master map), and FDEP says Dunedin became the first, designated in January of 2018 (FDEP).

FDEP named Malabar a Trail Town in 2018 for its vigorous efforts to build walking, bicycling and paddling trails through its conservation areas (FDEP story map).

The FDEP program page lists three reasons in its Malabar entry: the trail-building effort itself, an active Trails and Greenways Committee working to connect Malabar's trails to neighboring towns, and the trail shelter its volunteers built as a rest stop and storm refuge (FDEP Trail Town Program). The Town of Malabar quotes FDEP adding that the town is largely rural but borders a large population center and the Harris Corporation Engineer Center in Palm Bay, so neighbors use its trails too (Town of Malabar).

The town made its case in person. The committee's website lists Malabar's Florida Trail Town presentation to the FDEP Office of Greenways and Trails as September 2018 and its response to an FDEP Trail Town survey as September 2020 (Malabar Trails and Greenways Committee). The presentation, now posted by FDEP, opens with the line that the Town of Malabar seeks to become a Florida Trail Town (Town of Malabar presentation, page 1).

Location helped the Malabar case. The presentation places the town on the Indian River Lagoon near Melbourne Airport, Port Canaveral and I-95 (presentation, page 7), and the FDEP story map notes Malabar sits just across the Indian River from the East Coast Greenway (FDEP story map). The same slides cite more than 6,000 engineers working at Harris in Palm Bay, many of them mountain bikers or trail runners on the Malabar Trail System (presentation, page 17).

Malabar's 2018 presentation to FDEP rested on a third of the town in preserves or public land, an equipped trailhead at 1400 Marie Street and state trail grants (presentation, page 9; page 13; page 14).

The land count came first. As of 2017, the presentation says, Brevard County EEL Program sanctuaries covered 1,063 acres of Malabar and town parks and government land another 1,072 acres, a combined 33% of the town's 6,447 acres (presentation, page 9).

The slides then list the state Recreational Trails Program grants behind trails that touch the Malabar system, including projects in Palm Bay and Grant-Valkaria (presentation, page 14).

The closing slides summed up two decades of Malabar volunteer work as about 5 miles of paved trail, about 25 miles of unpaved trail, two major trailheads with a third in design, and working ties with the EEL Program, the City of Palm Bay and the Brevard Mountain Biking Association (presentation, page 56).

Malabar's Trail Town presentation divides the Malabar Trail System into a north area, with the Cameron Preserve between Malabar Scrub Sanctuary East and West, and a south area at Jordan Scrub (Town of Malabar presentation, page 12; page 26; page 30).

The paved piece is the Al Tuttle Trail. The Space Coast TPO says the 10-foot-wide trail starts at the Sand Hill Trail Head on Marie Street in Malabar, officially opened in 2013, and is part of a proposed 22-mile South Brevard Linear Trail linking Malabar, Palm Bay, Grant-Valkaria and Micco (Space Coast TPO).

The natural trails carry most of the mileage. Malabar's presentation counts about 12 miles on the main loop of the north system and about 8 more at Jordan Scrub in the south system (presentation, page 30). A draft town slide show prepared for the January 13, 2026 Trail Town Alliance meeting puts the total at over 20 miles of singletrack across Malabar's three main trail areas (Town of Malabar, page 19).

Paddling is the third leg of the Malabar designation. The presentation shows kayak launch parking at Turkey Creek Sanctuary in Palm Bay, a short distance from a connecting trail of the Malabar Trail System (presentation, page 40).

Trail users reach Malabar from I-95 at exit 173, heading east on Malabar Road (FL-514) to the main Sand Hill Trailhead at 1400 Marie St., according to the town's answers to FDEP (FDEP Trail Town responses).

In that response, the Malabar Trails and Greenways Committee chair told FDEP the trails cross terrain unusual for coastal Florida, because much of Malabar sits on the coastal sand hill ridge and several trails change in elevation and habitat (FDEP). The committee recommended the Al Tuttle Trail to young families and seniors who want a paved surface and a trailhead with a restroom and water fountain, and the natural surface trails to hikers, mountain bikers and riders.

Town Hall is part of the visit. The committee's FDEP answer suggests stopping at Malabar Town Hall, 2725 Malabar Road, for a Virtual Trail Pass with a QR code that opens high resolution maps of the Malabar trails (FDEP Trail Town responses). The same answer says being a Trail Town lets Malabar share its greenways through ecotourism while staying rural residential.

The town's Trails and Greenways Committee carries the Trail Town work, meeting the second Monday of each month at 6 p.m. at Malabar Town Hall (Town of Malabar).

Malabar still reports to the statewide network. At the request of the FDEP Trail Town Alliance coordinator, town staff prepared a slide show on the Cameron Preserve trails and amenities for the alliance's January 13, 2026 meeting (Town of Malabar, page 9; page 17). The draft slides say the committee has been active since the early 2000s, with 5 voting members, 2 alternates and one liaison from Grant-Valkaria, the next town south (Town of Malabar, page 19).

The plan in Malabar's Trail Town file is more connections. The presentation names two: south, completing the Al Tuttle Trail to Grant-Valkaria, and west, joining the off-road Malabar trails to Palm Bay's Grapefruit Trail (presentation, page 55). The western link would use the south bank of the C1 canal, which is an existing grassy road, plus an old existing trail to reach the Grapefruit Trail from the Turkey Creek trail system (presentation, page 57).

Last verified: October 13, 2026, on the Town of Malabar and FDEP Office of Greenways and Trails websites (Town of Malabar).