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JADE JACKSON LLOYDTampa Bay Watch will move into a $1.6-million, two-story facility in fall 2005 that will help extend its children's programs.
TIERRA VERDE - Just off the road, en route to Fort De Soto, sits a blue and white building that's a mystery to many who pass by. Inside, the operations of Tampa Bay Watch, a nonprofit marine life education group, have plugged on quietly for nearly two years.
Thanks to a new expansion, the discreet one-story structure will be replaced by a $1.6-million, two-story facility on stilts with a gazebo on top.
"It will look like a lighthouse beacon," said Lisa Shannon, TBW's communications director.
Standing at roughly 40 feet tall, the planned 9,900-square-foot building promises to raise the 11-year-old organization's profile, Shannon said.
"So many millions of people who go by Fort De Soto every (year) and they don't know what's here," Shannon said Friday. "It's going to be a very dominant, prestigious presence. You can see the (Sunshine) Skyway from it. It's just going to be a beautiful view."
On Friday, the group hosted a groundbreaking ceremony for the new Marine Science and Education Center, scheduled for completion in fall 2005.
Upstairs, the new complex will provide office space for TBW's staff. Downstairs will feature four classrooms, a conference room and meeting space and an aquaculture facility, Shannon said.
Though it sits in Fort De Soto's back yard, TBW has done work all around the bay area, Shannon said. Its focus has been on marine education and restoration, with oyster domes and oyster reef programs at the forefront.
Oyster domes are 100-pound, dome-shaped concrete structures with holes in them, planted in the bay near shorelines to prevent erosion and re-establish oysters.
Because of its waterfront location, the new facility will increase the group's ability to do habitat restoration.
The expanded facility also gives TBW a chance to extend the reach of its children's programs, Shannon said. Instead of visiting each of the 16 local middle schools for its Bay Grasses in Classes program, the TBW staff will be able to bus the kids to them.
Through the program, kids learn how to monitor and plant salt marshes. Roughly 3,100 students have participated in planting 58 acres of salt marsh in the bay since the program's 1995 inception, Shannon said.
The new facility should be able to accommodate 10,000 children a year, she said.
Even before the expansion, Shannon said TBW applied its restorative mojo to its own headquarters.
"We're not only improving other sites in the bay that will affect everyone, but, also, we've taken this property and turned it into something amazing for our future and our kids," she said.