ICON Water Trails celebrated a big fundraising milestone Thursday evening, announcing it has surpassed the $100 million mark of capital raised for the $125 million project that will connect 86 sites along 150 miles of waterways in Central Iowa.

It also was announced at ICON’s joint event with the Great Outdoors Foundation that the Fleur Drive ICON site will be named the Hubbell Trailhead, recognizing Hubbell Realty Co., which was an early contributor to ICON Water Trails and has continued its support for the project.

Stephanie Oppel, executive director of ICON Water Trails, said reaching the $100 million milestone is an opportunity to both “celebrate and reflect.”

“I think it’s also a ton of motivation to continue to raise funds,” she said in a conversation held before the event. “Reflecting on what this team has accomplished. We raise a lot of money for a lot of cool things in Central Iowa, but $100 million is a really big deal.”

The $100 million includes about 70% from federal, state and municipal funds. The other 30% is from private contributions.

“That 70/30 mix is valuable and what we were trying to get after in the beginning, so we’re seeing that realized, that this is public and private,” Oppel said. “The private funding reaching such a significant mark, having that private funding has helped us secure the public funds because they see the value the community has placed on this initiative.”

Reaching that $100 million mark will help ICON complete the Scott Avenue, Harriet Street and Fleur Drive sites.

Oppel said the next step is to work to deliver on what’s been promised.

“We keep chugging along to make sure design and permits and stakeholders and all the things needed to get us to completion,” she said. “Raising the money is a really important aspect of it, but we need to deliver on what people have contributed so far.”

Monica Converse, project manager for ICON Water Trails, said a lot of fundraising remains as ICON works to bring projects to fruition and begins planning for sites to be activated in the coming years.

“We’re also in the implementation phase right now,” she said. “We have several projects under construction and in design and under construction soon, but we’re also gearing up for operations planning. There’s a lot of work on our part over the next year. We’re going to be heavily investing in time and planning for operations. There’s always new challenges ahead.”

Oppel said the Scott Avenue site is expected to be completed in late summer and early fall 2026. Ground will be broken on the Fleur site next summer, with completion planned for late 2027.

Naming rights to the Fleur site were granted to Hubbell Realty Co., which named the site the Hubbell Trailhead.

“For a company of that size to contribute what they have and champion what they do every day for the water trails is huge,” Oppel said. “And none of that would have happened without (Hubbell president and CEO) Rick (Tollakson). We’re just super excited about it. Having the Hubbell Trailhead, it is a hub. It is a trailhead. A connecting place. You have the water trails. You have bike trails. The Coleman Bridge is right there.”

Tollakson said hitting the $100 million milestone demonstrates how important ICON Water Trails is to the community, and the impact it will have on quality of life in the region.

“It says a lot about our community to invest that kind of private and public money into these kinds of projects,” he said prior to Thursday’s event.

Hubbell was the first $1 million supporter of ICON and has since contributed another $780,000, including in-kind contributions of land that will be part of Hubbell projects that will lead to the trailhead.

Tollakson said being able to activate the downtown sites will show the community what can be done and create further awareness and support for the project.

Completion of ICON will also be critical in attracting and retaining talent in the region.

“If we have rivers and streams and we have more things that if we activate them they are exciting and can really help to keep people here and attract even more,” he said.

The Scott Avenue site is designed to create a safer, more user-friendly area for activities from kayaking to fishing. The Fleur Drive site will turn the low-head dam on the Raccoon River into a hub for water recreation. It will mitigate the dam and allow residents to enjoy river run experiences including activities that allow children and adults to learn surfing and kayaking at their own comfort levels.

Oppel said being able to finish the sites opens up the Raccoon River to connect other communities that it runs through.

“It’s a prime example of why regionalism is so important,” she said.

It also creates opportunities for those communities to build other amenities to attract people to the river, and opportunities for economic development along the river, Oppel said.

She said an outdoors outfitting company in Waverly has indicated interest in opening in Des Moines because of ICON Water Trails. Other communities that have similar water sites have seen a growth in retail, coffee shops and bars. A site in Montreal has a houseboat coffee shop and an on-water boat spa.

“I think the boldness and the audacity of envisioning a project like ICON, it’s so bold and creative, it’s only going to spur more creativity, more ingenuity and more excitement,” Oppel said. “I think it’s kind of endless to see what the opportunities are around this.”

Oppel said ICON Water Trails will also change the way people in Central Iowa engage with the rivers.

“The water trails are turning people back toward the rivers,” she said. “We cross the rivers. We see them when we go across any of the bridges downtown, and that’s what’s iconic about Des Moines, is the bridges. But we cross [the rivers], and now I think we’re going to spend more time on them and re-engaging people.”