The Underline’s newest section opens, with kids’ play forest from Nikki Spoelstra

New sections of The Underline are popping out regularly like hot bread from the oven as work on the last remaining unfinished pieces of the 10-mile linear park and trail enters the final stretch.

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On Saturday, Friends of the Underline and Miami-Dade County ceremonially opened the newest finished piece, running 1.17 miles from Dadeland to South Miami at the edge of Coral Gables at Red Road.

Kids frolicked in the new Nikki Spoelstra Play Forest, one of the segment’s highlights, while a band played and vendors hawked food by South Miami City Hall as advocates and officials spoke at the dedication.

The formal opening means that seven of The Underline’s 10 miles are now finished and open. Still to come is the middle section, through Coral Gables and along the University of Miami, which will contain some of the trail’s most elaborate features. That’s expected to be ready at the end of the year.

Once that happens, Underline founder Meg Daly promises “a 10-mile-long party” to celebrate the unlikely realization of what she says many regarded as a “crazy idea” when she first proposed it.

“There is still a lot more to come, but it’s really exciting to go from dream to reality,” Daly said.

The big Nikki Spoelstra forest, which as the name suggests is a sylvan version of a playground, will allow kids to connect with nature — a big Underline theme throughout the lushly planted trail — as they explore and have fun. There is an outdoor reading room, a set of musical instruments and covered seating for the parents.

Spoelstra, a former Miami Heat dancer and a local influencer, donated $500,000 to sponsor the play forest.

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“It’s such a feel-good project,” Spoelstra recently told the Miami Herald. “Nature, exploration and creativity are all things I’m passionate about. I also wanted to create something that would have lasting impact that my kids would be able to experience, too.”

The new section, which people have been checking out since construction fences came down earlier this summer, also features a butterfly garden, a village of birdhouses and a micro-forest — a compact, fast-growing cluster of trees and shrubs that mimics a natural forest.

In addition, work on this newest segment included replacement of a bridge over a canal just north of Southwest 80th Street that dated back to the days when the trail corridor, which runs under the elevated Metrorail line along U.S. 1, was industrialist Henry Flagler’s rail line.

The section also connects directly to a South Miami Hospital meditation garden, built several years ago, that had been locked, awaiting completion of the Underline section next to it, Daly said.

Miami-Dade Commissioner Raquel Regalado, whose district includes a long section of the Underline and who lives near it, said before Saturday’s opening that many of her neighbors are talking about it and meeting to walk the trail.

“People in Miami-Dade are so used to broken promises that they are excited to see it come to life,” Regalado said. “It really is building community.”

Read more The Underline’s newest section opens, with kids’ play forest from Nikki Spoelstra