Miccosukee Canopy Road Greenway in Tallahassee, Florida

The Miccosukee Canopy Road Greenway is a Leon County managed linear park of about 500 acres of pasture and woodland along Miccosukee Road in northeast Tallahassee.

Leon County's forest stewardship management plan, signed in June 2025, describes a 497.73 acre linear park running 6.4 miles along Miccosukee Road, used by Native people for hunting, gathering and agriculture, then for cotton and tobacco before the Civil War, and more recently managed as a plantation for timber, grazing and hunting. The property holds Certified Forest Stewardship status, and the plan calls for reestablishing longleaf pine on some uplands and continued prescribed fire. The county's park index lists picnic areas, restrooms, trails and water fountains, operating times of seven days a week during daylight, and the address 5600 Miccosukee Road.

Published figures for the same Miccosukee Road greenway differ, so they are shown side by side. Visit Tallahassee, the county's tourism office, lists equestrian, hiking and mountain biking use on unpaved trails rated intermediate.

The State of Florida acquired the Miccosukee greenway on May 6, 1998 with Preservation funds through the state Office of Greenways and Trails, buying it from the Trust for Public Land.

According to a July 9, 2024 Leon County agenda item, the land was acquired for the Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund through the Florida Department of Environmental Protection's Office of Greenways and Trails Land Acquisition Program, and purchased from the Trust for Public Land, which had acquired it from Powerhouse, Inc. just before the sale. On February 24, 2000, a lease was executed from the trustees to the FDEP Office of Greenways and Trails, which subleased the land to Leon County as greenway manager. On November 19, 2015, the state signed a cancellation of that lease so that the sublease serves as the direct lease between the trustees and the county; FDEP administers it. The trustees are the Governor and Cabinet.

A management plan governs the details. Leon County adopted the Miccosukee Canopy Road Greenway Management Plan in 2002 and updated it in 2013, and the county notes that Section 253.034(5)(b), Florida Statutes, requires an update every ten years. In July 2024 the plan was under review by the appointed Miccosukee Canopy Road Greenway Citizens Committee. Visit Tallahassee adds that the county manages the Tallahassee greenway with the assistance of the Friends of the Miccosukee Canopy Road Greenway.

The greenway is named for Miccosukee Road, one of the five original Leon County canopy roads designated in 1972.

Leon County says Miccosukee Road began as an Indian footpath to the village of Miccosukee that British surveyors noted in 1767, that by the 1850s thirty Leon County plantation owners used it to haul cotton to market, and that live oaks now create a nearly nine mile stretch of continuous canopy. The 2024 agenda item says Ordinance 72-114 designated it, with Centerville, Meridian, Old Bainbridge and Old St. Augustine roads, and that the land within 100 feet of its centerline is a Canopy Road Zone protected under Leon County Land Development Code Section 10-6.707.

The road and the trail meet at two crossings. The county places them about 500 feet east of Walaka Trail and about 650 feet east of Miles Johnson Road, each with trail user activated flashers. The county's canopy roads management page notes that portions of Miccosukee Road near Crump Road were pruned for height clearance to the legal minimum, and describes a project moving Miccosukee Road about 5 feet north at Miles Johnson Road to improve sight distance past large oaks.

The debate is about roads across the Miccosukee Greenway, because four access easements recorded before the state bought it reserve crossings to Miccosukee Road.

The 2024 county report says the prior owner reserved crossings at Dempsey Mayo Road, Edenfield Road, Arendell Way and the Shamrock South Extension for the benefit of its remaining land. The easements are recorded in the deed, reflected in the management plan and in the Tallahassee-Leon County Comprehensive Plan, and reserve right of way for up to four roads to serve development planned for decades. A city request to trade the Arendell Way easement for a new Thornton Road crossing stalled when FDEP declined to take it to the trustees.

One crossing is moving forward. In July 2024 the Dempsey Mayo Road extension was the only active project, running from Miccosukee Road into the Canopy development and on toward Centerville Road, with a roundabout at Miccosukee Road funded by the developer. The City approved construction plans for Canopy Unit 5, including the extension, on April 2, 2020. After an ad hoc focus group met from 2018 to June 2021, the design grew to two 11 foot lanes, a 12 foot multi-use trail, a raised trail crossing and user activated flashers. The county ruled out a bridge or underpass, noting that horse traffic cannot reasonably use one, and the report scheduled roundabout construction to start in summer 2025.

Residents asked for more. At its May 14, 2024 meeting the Leon County Commission requested the report; on July 9, 2024 staff concluded that an overlay district proposed by the Friends of the Miccosukee Canopy Road Greenway was not necessary because protections were already in place, and said any future crossing at the other easements would go through public engagement and similar safety review. Those protections include the greenway's Open Space designation on the Future Land Use Map, which under Policy 2.2.14 limits government-owned recreation land to uses such as passive recreation and silviculture, plus buffers in the Welaunee plans.

The Blueprint Northeast Gateway project, which builds Welaunee Boulevard and the Welaunee Greenway, is the largest project near the Miccosukee Greenway.

Blueprint Intergovernmental Agency describes a new Welaunee Boulevard north from Fleischman Road to Roberts Road, a two-lane extension of Shamrock Street from Centerville Road to Welaunee Boulevard, and the Welaunee Greenway with connections to the Miccosukee Greenway. Construction on Phase I, south of I-10, began on November 6, 2023 and is anticipated to be completed in early 2027; a new bridge over I-10 began on June 22, 2025 and is anticipated for mid 2027; and final design for Phase II and the Welaunee Greenway is underway.

The plans also add Tallahassee parkland. The 2024 county report says the 8.4 mile Welaunee Greenway will connect to the Miccosukee Canopy Road Greenway to form a 17 mile loop, that acquisition of 250 acres for it was complete, and that construction was anticipated to begin in 2026; Blueprint's current page lists its final design as still underway. The Welaunee Arch Master Plan, adopted in 2020, requires open space at least 75 feet wide along the Canopy Road Zone of Miccosukee Road, the Welaunee Heel planned unit development limits uses next to the greenway to open space and low density homes and allows Miles Johnson Road to become an east-west pedestrian greenway, and the Welaunee Toe-East plan on city-owned land reserves an open space buffer.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, reading Leon County's July 9, 2024 agenda item, park index entry, 2025 forest stewardship plan and canopy road pages, together with Blueprint's Northeast Gateway page and Visit Tallahassee's trail listing.