Officials consider a number of land parcels as possible sites in the New Tampa area.
By RODNEY THRASH
Published April 4, 2004
NEW TAMPA - The grass is barely worn at the recently opened New Tampa Community Park, but Hillsborough County officials already have their sights on developing three more pieces of untapped land.
"It won't nearly cover the need that the New Tampa community has," county Commissioner Jim Norman said of the 40-acre park on Commerce Park Boulevard. "Especially when it's built out.
"We're going to need a lot more athletic fields and recreation for the New Tampa community."
Someday soon, New Tampa will comprise 25 percent - then 30 percent - of Tampa's population, City Council member Shawn Harrison said recently. And despite a burgeoning population of more than 30,000, only 8 percent of Tampa Palms' 14.8 square miles is devoted to park space, city records show. Northeast of Interstate 75 in New Tampa North, parks are even more scarce. Only 1.7 percent of the 14.9 square miles are parks.
So county park officials plan to meet with New Tampa homeowners at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday to figure out how to best utilize the land. Does New Tampa need more baseball and soccer fields? What about bike paths? And hiking trails?
"We don't have specific site plans," said Pete Fowler, conservation manager for the county parks department. "We want to meet (with) the community (to) see what the needs are and develop the program and the facilities to meet the needs."
The county does, however, have plenty of land options.
There are 70 acres of developable space 1 mile east of I-75 on Morris Bridge Road. Two years ago, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were interested in the site for their new training center. Environmentalists who wanted to maintain it as a nature preserve protested. Ultimately the Bucs pulled out, choosing instead to build on the Tampa Bay Center shopping mall site near Raymond James Stadium.
The Sierra Club, an environmental advocacy group, said it will push the county to pursue "passive" uses of the Morris Bridge land such as trails. Any other use "just isn't suitable," said Lynn McGarvey, conservation chairwoman for the Sierra Club.
"The traffic ... would be invasive to any wildlife that lives there."
The county's other options, Live Oak Preserve and the St. Joseph's Hospital property across from Hunter's Green, are more appropriate sites, McGarvey said.
In January, the Hillsborough County School District purchased a 17.5-acre land parcel on Bruce B. Downs Boulevard and County Line Road for $1.1-million. The county wants to partner with the district to build athletic fields for the new elementary and middle schools that will open in 2005, parks director Stan Motley said.
The schools and the county would share the fields. By collaborating with the district, the county can cut down on infrastructure costs such as parking, water and sewers, Motley said.
An 81-acre parcel along Bruce B. Downs Boulevard is a third option. The county is purchasing the land for a yet-undisclosed amount as it braces for a $168-million road widening project that will see overloaded and increasingly dysfunctional Bruce B. Downs grow from four to eight lanes.
Years ago, St. Joseph's Hospital bought the land for $1.8-million. Twenty years later, the land sits undeveloped, a 2-mile stretch of nothing more than trees and electrical poles sandwiched between the Richmond Place subdivision and New Tampa Boulevard.
Last October, the hospital "decided that a large inpatient hospital campus wouldn't be the best use of that property," hospital spokeswoman Lisa Patterson said.
Though county appraisal records estimate the land is worth $1.96-million, the hospital's asking price was $10-million.
But the county doesn't need all 81 acres, county real estate director Mike Kelly said, "so there will be some land available." New Tampa Cultural Center officials also are mulling the site as a potential home for the planned $25-million center.
If the county acquires each of the sites, Norman said he hopes they would be ready for use by 2006.
The Hillsborough County Parks, Recreation & Conservation Department will hold a meeting at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Benito Middle School cafeteria, 10101 Cross Creek Blvd.
