Officials want public input at a discussion Thursday about the plans for new courts and other sports facilities.
By JON WILSON
Published April 4, 2004
ST. PETERSBURG - The city's oldest recreation center awaits a $3-million makeover that some officials believe could shoot more energy into Midtown redevelopment.
Lighted football and soccer fields, new basketball courts and a modernized tennis center are among planned enhancements for Bartlett Park, carved from a swamp during the 1930s as part of Depression-era federal programs.
"We want to take the existing facilities, kind of rejuvenate them and bring them forward into the 21st century," said John Green, the city's capital improvements director.
He unveiled the plans at a low-key community meeting last week. Another public discussion is planned Thursday during the Bartlett Park Neighborhood Association's monthly meeting, 6 p.m. at the Neighborhood Housing Services building, 1600 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. St.
"This is not really in stone. We want people to have an opportunity to tweak (the plans) a little bit," City Council member Earnest Williams said.
The improvements' timing and pace depend on availability of the money to pay for them.
About $200,000 already is in hand, Green said. It will jump-start the project's first phase, which includes building three new clay tennis courts, renovating an existing one and drafting plans for a new St. Petersburg Tennis Center clubhouse.
A combination of grants, Penny for Pinellas sales tax money and other city and federal funds will pay for the facelift. Work could begin later this year and will proceed in several phases.
A later stage would bring fishing docks and observation decks to Bartlett Lake, one of the park's major features.
But the tennis center, which has lifted itself from near oblivion three years ago, is in line for the most striking work.
Plans call for an eventual 20 lighted courts and a new, two-story clubhouse, which at 7,500 square feet will be about three times the size of the current structure.
The new building would capture some of the character and ambience of the old one, which has gone far beyond most notions of historic charm.
"Termites are linked together holding hands. If one sneezes and reaches behind to pull out a handkerchief, the roof kind of dips," Green said.
The clubhouse would include a pro shop, a boon for the center's 130 adult members.
But most of the new space would accommodate the tennis center's youth program, a burgeoning tennis-and-education enterprise that includes 200 to 300 young people, with up to 60 showing up daily.
About 82 percent are black, said Mike Carroll, president of the nonprofit Tennis Foundation of St. Petersburg, which runs the center. Some are from Midtown neighborhoods, but youngsters from all ethnic backgrounds from throughout the city attend, Carroll said.
Besides receiving tennis instruction, a hired teacher and several volunteers offer the youngsters homework assistance, reading skills enhancement and computer help.
The new clubhouse would contain two new classrooms and more space for a computer laboratory and library, according to plans.
Also on the renovation schedule is completion of the stadium seating that overlooks two courts that years ago showcased some of the world's best tennis players. But for some reason, Green said, the stadium only extended half the length of the courts when it was built.
The plans have generated some optimism that the tennis center might become a neighborhood catalyst for more development.
Carroll said he was told by a tennis center volunteer that a similar scenario happened in Delray Beach, when the east coast city developed a tennis facility far removed from the ritzier beach areas.
The neighborhood near the Delray Beach center developed into a restaurant and retail area.
At the St. Petersburg Tennis Center, the need for lighted courts has arisen from a demand for night play. It's a phenomenon Carroll said tennis center officials were warned wouldn't happen because of old prejudices about coming to Midtown after dark.
The center is attractive to people throughout the city, "particularly since we've had so little experience with crime," he said.
"We're overturning misunderstandings. That might be a good example to retail groups."
