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An artist offers a plan to redeem the Clearwater roundabout after its fountain boondoggle. Officials won't begin discussing options until April.
By CHRISTINA HEADRICK, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published February 17, 2002
CLEARWATER -- The fountain in the beach's huge roundabout was frequently ridiculed as the world's most expensive birdbath, prompting officials to plan to demolish the $2.1-million structure later this year.
Now there is a movement to return the roundabout to the birds.
Crystal Beach artist Hal Stowers proposes to build nine two-story, stainless steel egrets and great blue herons, sitting atop large pedestals both within the roundabout and at Pier 60 Park.
"They're definitely monumental," Stowers said of his avian creations.
The price tag for the humongous work of art, titled Sunset Watch, would be about $350,000 to $375,000, the artist estimated, if the City Commission decides later this year to fund the project.
However, some people already question whether the city is considering the sculpture in an appropriately public manner.
"Let's open this up and let more people take a look at what's being discussed," said Sue Boschen, another beach resident and a jewelrymaker, who unsuccessfully sued the city over the roundabout.
City officials insist there will be plenty of public debate.
Stowers' supporters, spearheaded by several prominent beach business people, have been organizing low-key viewings of a scale model of the proposed sculpture over the past month, trying to drum up enthusiasm.
So far, the reviews have been extremely positive from members of the Clearwater Beach Association, Clearwater Beach Chamber of Commerce and city administrators, said Ted Bair, owner of the Quality Boats dealership and co-founder of a recently formed group dubbed Friends of Sunset Watch. "I haven't found anybody who's been exposed to this yet who isn't totally for it," Bair said.
Julie Nichols, of Julie's Seafood and Sunsets, is helping Bair promote what she sees as a fanciful, artistic statement that would become a positive icon for the beach.
"I think it's very classy and would make a beautiful entrance to Clearwater Beach, something totally unique," Nichols said.
The idea for Sunset Watch emerged last year, Stowers said, when he heard that the Clearwater Beach Association was sponsoring a contest to come up with ideas to replace the massive fountain in the roundabout's center.
Commissioners had decided to scrap the $2.1-million fountain because the boondoggle was costly to maintain, guzzled water in a time of drought, blocked drivers' views across the roundabout and annoyingly sprayed cars with water.
Stowers said it's always been his policy not to enter contests, so he didn't submit his idea to the beach association. However, some city officials weren't thrilled with the concept that the beach association recommended: a simple grove of palm trees in the roundabout's center. Mayor Brian Aungst jokingly called it "Sherwood Forest."
Around last Christmas, Bair, who collects Stowers' paintings of beach scenes, began encouraging the artist to suggest his idea.
Bair, Nichols and other supporters say that installing the huge steel birds in the roundabout would be a small fraction of the cost of what has already been spent on the ill-fated fountain. Stowers adds that the cost of his proposal is a good deal, since hiring New York or Chicago outfits to do the work would cost two to three times more.
They all argue that doing something really wonderful in the fountain's place would be redeeming -- if the community embraces the idea.
"We don't want to be in a position where we're trying to sell this to the community," said B.J. Stowers, the artist's wife and business partner.
"There's been so much hurt," Hal Stowers said, "we want to be part of a healing process."
Stowers, who designed a large steel sculpture for IMRglobal Corp.'s downtown headquarters, invited the St. Petersburg Times to view his proposal at his "Point Sun, Moon and Sea" home and studio on a quiet bayou in Crystal Beach on Friday. Stowers, a lifetime county resident, believes Sunset Watch would be a tribute to the area's precious environmental resources. And birding is one of the fastest growing outdoor activities, he said.
His metal birds would each be 2-inches thick and 10 to 12 feet tall, made of expensive, high-grade steel with a matte finish that wouldn't cause glare. They would perch atop 18-inch thick steel pedestals, also 10 to 12 feet tall.
There would be six birds anchored in a 50-foot-wide reflecting pool in the center of the roundabout. Landscaping, small sand dunes and a emergency shoulder would be created around the piece, said Stowers, who is also a landscape architect.
Three large birds would be placed in Pier 60 Park, across from the west end of the roundabout. People would be able to touch these birds and view them up close, perhaps eliminating any desire to run across the roundabout to scrutinize the birds in its center, Stowers said.
The design would be very low-maintenance, he added. But should the work ever be damaged, the city would have computer files of the creations so that a duplicate could easily be ordered, he said.
It would take four to six months to create the sculpture. However, Stowers says he can't guarantee he would be able to work it into his schedule unless he hears from the city by early summer.
City commissioners won't begin discussing the issue until April, said Mahshid Arasteh, public works administrator. The city wants to wait until then to see if ongoing changes to the roundabout roadway's design cut down on accidents, which number at least 519 since December 1999.
If no further construction is needed to make the roundabout easier to drive, the city should have about $800,000 left in its $10-million roundabout fund to pay for something to replace the fountain, Arasteh said. Until then, the fountain sits drained of water, a giant, concrete cake.
"It's awful," said Nichols. "It looks terrible."
For that reason, beach business owners want the city to do something quickly.
But others suggest that the city needs to carefully consider how it chooses a replacement for the fountain. They recall that the city got itself into this mess by never having any meaningful, public discussion of the fountain that was built, which was designed hastily and behind-the-scenes, as the city rushed to build the roundabout in 1999.
This time, the process needs to be "painfully public and above reproach," said Carl Wagenfohr, an Island Estates resident who has been active in a city committee that has reviewed all proposed changes to the roundabout.
"First, they need to make sure their changes to the road cause it to work properly," Boschen said, before discussing art for the roundabout's center.
Personally, Boschen said, she would prefer to see dolphins rather than birds if there is to be a sculpture, because they better express the beach's family-fun atmosphere than egrets and herons.
Beach real estate broker David Little said he doesn't think now is a good time to bring forward a $375,000 sculpture project.
"I've heard a lot of people say they don't want anything else spent there," Little said.
Judith Powers-Jones, the executive director of the Pinellas County Arts Council and a member of St. Petersburg's Public Arts Commission, said that the process in choosing a public artwork is as important as the final decision.
Generally, appointed bodies recommend sites for such artwork, then vigorously debate what would fit best with a site. A "call to artists" is then published and a selection committee reviews the submissions to make a decision.
Powers-Jones recommended that Clearwater look at how other public arts programs operate before making a decision on what would be one of the largest public sculptures in the Tampa Bay area.
"These are in fact public dollars, and you want public input," Powers-Jones said. "You want it to go through that sort of process. That is public art. That is the norm."