The Trail Starting at Imperial Park Will Pass Under Highway 6, Meadowcroft and US 59

Inside Sugar Lakes, the walking loop at the neighborhood's front door is a quarter mile long. Sugar Lakes Park sits at 120 Bay View Drive, just south of Highway 90A, and the city lists its trail as a .25-mile walking and jogging path, alongside a ship-themed playground, a pavilion and a sand volleyball court.

On the same highway, the city has a contract in place for a trail fourteen times that length. Sugar Land Trail Phase 1 is planned to start at Imperial Park, 7750 US Hwy 90A, and run 3.5 miles with underpasses beneath three major roads. Those underpasses are what make the route useful for getting somewhere, since a walker or cyclist would never have to wait at a light on Highway 6.

The route, from Imperial Park east

The city's own description is brief. The 10-foot-wide concrete trail "will run along the west side of Ditch H, starting at Imperial Park near Matlage Way and ending near the Smart Financial Centre at Lexington." The project was long known as the Ditch H Trail and has been renamed. You will still see both names in city documents.

Imperial Park already gives the trail a working start. The recreation center at 234 Matlage Way has a gymnasium, an exercise room, multipurpose rooms, a kitchen and access to the existing Imperial Park trail. From there, Sugar Scoop, the city's news site, lists the structures that turn the corridor into a continuous path:

1. A pedestrian and bicycle underpass beneath State Highway 6
2. A second underpass beneath Meadowcroft Boulevard
3. A third beneath U.S. Highway 59
4. Three fiber reinforced polymer pedestrian bridges
5. Boardwalks near the LID 17 pump station outfall bridge and the Bullhead Bayou bridge
6. A trailhead, plus wayfinding signage along the corridor

According to Sugar Scoop, these grade-separated crossings let people travel "without navigating busy roadways." Highway 6 and US 59 both cross this trail's path. With all three underpasses in place, the full 3.5 miles from Imperial Park to the Smart Financial Centre area should not require crossing a single traffic lane.

The city has not said in plain text where the trailhead will sit, so the published route description is the best guide for now. Imperial Park anchors one end, and the Smart Financial Centre area at Lexington anchors the other.

The detail people will talk about after dark

Some sections of the trail will be paved with glow stones. Sugar Scoop describes the material this way:

"Portions of the trail will incorporate glow stones, an innovative material that absorbs sunlight during the day before emitting a gentle glow for approximately ten hours after sunset."

The city expects the glow stones to last roughly 20 years. Community Impact reported the same ten-hour glow window when the construction contract was approved. The city's project map marks the glow-stone segments, but the written descriptions don't say which stretches get them. Ten hours of glow after an October sunset would carry well into the evening, which fits a corridor built for the after-work walk.

A 2013 promise, paid for mostly with outside money

In 2013, Sugar Land voters approved Proposition 3, a parks bond that included a network of nearly 10 miles of hike and bike trails and bridges. The city's own status list shows how that promise has been filled in:

The Imperial Connector Trail is the earlier piece Sugar Lakes residents may already know. When it was announced in 2015, it was described as connecting to existing trails in the Brooks Street and Lake Pointe areas, with sidewalk access along Brooks Street, Highway 6 and Highway 90, and an internal loop at Imperial Park. The new trail starts from that same park and heads the other way, east along Ditch H.

The money behind it is unusual. According to Sugar Scoop, the 2013 bond set aside $10.2 million for trails. Bonds issued in 2015 and 2019 paid for the Imperial Connector and First Colony trails, and the rest was held back for this one. The city then secured another $12.2 million in county and federal grants. The $9.19 million construction contract is being paid with those county and federal dollars, which keeps the remaining bond money available for other trail or park work. Community Impact's August roundup lists the project's funding sources more broadly as the Sugar Land 2013 parks bond, the Fort Bend County 2021 parks bond and a 2026 Federal Transit Administration grant. Both accounts point the same way. A trail that residents first voted for in 2013 is set to be built largely with money raised outside city limits.

The bidding was competitive. Eleven contractors bid, and City Council awarded the contract to B&D Contractors Inc. on July 21, 2026.

The clock, as the city has published it

The schedule is the part a Sugar Lakes resident will keep checking. Here is how the city laid it out this summer:

• July 21, 2026: Council approves the $9.19 million contract
• August 4, 2026: Groundbreaking scheduled at 9 a.m. near the crescent at Imperial Park
• August 2026: Notice to proceed planned
• 425 calendar days: Construction duration
• October 2027: Substantial completion targeted

That puts the planned finish about a year from this week. These are the dates the city published in July and August, so read them as the plan the contract was built around. They are not a progress report.

The city expects construction to stay mostly inside the Ditch H corridor and says impacts on surrounding neighborhoods should be minimal for the length of the project.

What Phase 2 adds beyond Lexington

Phase 1 ends near the Smart Financial Centre, and the city has already paid for the design of what comes next. On May 5, 2026, City Council approved a $791,576 design contract with Consor North America Inc. for Sugar Land Trail Phase 2. Community Impact reported that the second phase covers Lexington Boulevard from Oxbow Drive to Highway 6 and Austin Parkway between Lexington and Commonwealth boulevards. It adds a pedestrian bridge over Steep Bank Creek and changes to pedestrian signals at four intersections.

The combined network is meant to link residential areas with Sugar Land Town Square, Constellation Field, Memorial Park, Imperial Park and the University of Houston at Sugar Land campus, according to city agenda documents cited in the same report. For Sugar Lakes, the one on that list along US 90A, the same highway as the neighborhood's entrance, is Imperial Park, where Phase 1 begins.

Phase 2 is still in design, with no construction contract or date. Phase 1 has the contractor, the funding and the October 2027 target. When it's done, the walk that now ends after a quarter mile at Sugar Lakes Park could continue from Imperial Park for 3.5 miles, under Highway 6, Meadowcroft Boulevard and US 59.

Kelly Ferguson and the team at Fort Bend Real Estate Corporation keep track of public projects like the Sugar Land Trail because they change how a neighborhood works day to day long before anyone puts them on a listing sheet. If you'd like to talk through what the Ditch H corridor and the Imperial Park area could mean for your property over the next few years, we'd be glad to schedule a consultation.