Work begins soon on preserve's window on nature

EAST LAKE -- It would be cheaper to build the new Brooker Creek Preserve Environmental Education Center at the entrance of the nature preserve, just off Keystone Road. And, yes, it would have cost less to put the parking lot right next to the center's cracker-style buildings.

But doing that would defeat the purpose of creating what planners call a "window on Pinellas County's largest preserve."

Officials are building the education center a half-mile into the preserve on purpose. They also want people to park 650 feet away from the facility, so visitors will have to get to the open-air classroom and buildings by strolling on a boardwalk through the woods.

"So many times people say they are going to see nature," said Claudia Lewis, the manager of the planned facility. "They drive their cars to the entrance of an education center, get out and go into the air-conditioned facility, then get right back in their cars and drive home. That's not what I call seeing nature."

What they would miss is the maple, live oak and cypress trees surrounding the facility, Lewis said. They would also miss hearing the cicadas buzzing in the background, and the red-shouldered hawks circling overhead.

They would miss the essence of what Lewis calls an "island in an ocean of concrete" -- the 8,500-acre Brooker Creek Preserve, which stretches from the Pasco border to East Lake Woodlands and Oldsmar, from East Lake Road on the west to Hillsborough County on the east.

Site work on the $9-million project is already under way, and officials will break ground on the 17,600-square-foot, three-building education center Saturday morning. The center is scheduled to open in the summer of 2003.

Lewis, 45, was hired a year and a half ago from Palm Beach County, where she managed the Loxahatchee Preserve Nature Center. She has spent 18 months working with architects, environmentalists and professionals from other environmental facilities to design the education center.

Saturday's groundbreaking festivities are open to the public and are designed to give visitors a taste of what they can expect when the facility opens next year, Lewis said.

Folk music will be played before, during and after the actual groundbreaking. Instead of wearing hard hats and using ceremonial gold shovels, dignitaries will have on cowboy hats and break ground with old farm tools. Historic artifacts and old photos, including many of the Boyd family, which owned much of what is now East Lake, including a significant portion of the preserve itself, will be displayed.

Cornbread, watermelon, grits and other staples of pioneer life in Florida will be provided by the Friends of Brooker Creek Preserve.

The complex was designed in an old-Florida style, with tin roofs and siding that looks like the clapboards used on Florida homes in the 1800s and early 1900s. Huge windows and wood beams will be placed to give visitors a sense of actually being in the preserve while in the exhibit hall, classrooms or multipurpose building, which will have meeting space and dining facilities. The center also will have offices for the preserve's staff.

Environmentally friendly building methods will be used when they are feasible, county officials say.

"We've been looking at building green wherever possible," said Will Davis, director of environmental management for Pinellas County. "But we've tried to be careful with our expenses and we don't want to be a proving ground for untested products."

More than $2.5-million will be spent on a variety of exhibits showcasing the six habitats found within the preserve. Planners hope to give visitors perspectives on things normally hidden from view and challenge them to gain understanding of the natural processes that have shaped these systems over the past million years.

"This education center gives citizens a chance to learn what Florida was like before all the concrete and skyscrapers," said County Commissioner Susan Latvala, a board member of Friends of the Brooker Creek Preserve.

The project, including the exhibits and the road leading to the facility, will cost more than $9-million, Lewis said. Penny for Pinellas funds will be used to finance the construction.

While aesthetics were a factor in locating the facility, planners also considered which site would have the least environmental impact on the preserve.

"Our main mandate is to minimize the impacts we have on this last wild area of our county," Lewis said, "and we've tried very hard to do that."

-- Julie Church can be reached at (727) 445-4229 or church@sptimes.com.

If you go

Groundbreaking ceremonies for the Brooker Creek Preserve Environmental Education Center will be held at 9 a.m. Saturday. The entrance to the education center site is half amile east of Lora Lane, off Keystone Road. A one-mile entry road leads to parking areas and the construction site. Following the groundbreaking, guided tours of the preserve will be offered. Call (727) 943-4000.

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