City to tackle last stretch of Central Park

The restoration, scheduled to end by spring, will include removing exotic vegetation to make way for native plants.

By LORRI HELFAND, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published November 9, 2002

LARGO -- The city of Largo soon will begin a restoration project on the final chunk of land in Largo Central Park.

In the next few months, Largo plans to revitalize about 100 acres of parkland by clearing out exotic plants such as Brazilian peppers so that native plants and wildlife can flourish.

The city will receive about $62,500 to cover half the restoration costs of the forested wetlands portion of the parkland. Largo will foot the remaining costs of the $500,000 phase of the project.

The grants come from the District's Pinellas Anclote River Basin Board and the state's Surface Water Improvement and Management Program. The SWIM Act, established 15 years ago, requires management districts to maintain and improve important water bodies.

The majority of restoration should be completed by spring, said Greg Brown, Largo Parks superintendent.

Largo Central Park, which opened in 1995, has a playground, a children's railroad, picnic areas and the Military Court of Honor. The city has finished the new $4.7-million Largo Central Park Nature Preserve, which covers about 31 acres and has a bike path, nature trail, picnic shelters, a two-story observation tower and 3,000 feet of boardwalk through swamp in the park. The preserve also has an educational kiosk and more than 40 environmental education signs.

The Southwest Florida Management District has also funded a stormwater treatment facility to clean a pond on the property that flows into Lake Seminole and Boca Ciega Bay.

Eventually, boardwalks and trails will link most of the 100 acres and provide an opportunity for the community to mingle with the environment. Restoration will include an uplands area, a higher and drier piece of land, which is next to the spot where the new $20.1-million library is being built. And people will be able to check out books and make their way through the park.

The goal of the parks project will be to improve recreation opportunities, restore the environment and educate the public about exotic and nuisance species.

Vegetation planted in the wetlands will also help purify the water that drains down to the aquifer.

Brown recalled the tangled jungle of exotic plants that overwhelmed the area where the new preserve is and said the same regeneration will happen here.

Now it's come alive, he said.

"That park has everything, otters to alligators, eagles to osprey," he said.

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