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Pink street dwellers: park, yes; parking, no

Residents of the Pinellas Point area like the idea of a passive park with native flora, but oppose a parking lot.

By ANDREW MEACHAM
Published January 23, 2005

ST. PETERSBURG - Ray Wunderlich III returned on Tuesday to the neighborhood of his youth and pitched an ambitious landscaping plan for a park on the city's southern tip.

Residents mostly praised their returning son for his vision, but lambasted him for wanting a parking lot to go with the improved park.

"I'd like to know who anointed you to come into our neighborhood and change the face of it," Morris Shapero, an international business professor at Eckerd College, challenged at one point.

Concerns about parking dominated Wunderlich's presentation before the Greater Pinellas Point Civic Association. At stake was the fate of an increasingly scarce expanse of undeveloped waterfront land south of Pinellas Point Drive, the final interstate exit before the Sunshine Skyway bridge.

Several "pink streets" residents along Demens Drive S and Armistead Place S turned out Tuesday to protest the proposed lot, where nature lovers would park before they stroll.

If neighbors approve the rest of the plan, there will be much to stroll through.

The city in the 1990s bought the waterfront property west of Serpentine Circle S to 14th Street S with the intention of leaving the grassy waterfront land and its mangroves undeveloped. The health supplement retailer's proposal, for which he has received two grants and the cautious backing of the city's parks department, would make the park "even more passive."

Wunderlich's plan calls for removing nonnative trees such as Brazilian peppers, Australian pines, carrotwood and date palm - "exotics" that tend to push out native species - and plant more than 100 species of trees and shrubs. The grassland of today would get slash pines and oaks, 200 gumbo-limbos alone, tall trees with shiny brown trunks, and new grasses and low-lying shrubs too numerous to name.

Visitors could pause to read educational signs at more than a dozen locations. They could learn what "wetlands" really means, and how microorganisms in the water around mangroves attract fish.

Strategically placed benches would invite visitors to enjoy the view of Tampa Bay, the Skyway bridge and the horizon.

The neighborhood had originally sought money from the Tampa Bay Estuaries Program to clear the park of exotics. When their attempt failed, Wunderlich rewrote the grant and succeeded for $7,500. The city is matching that amount. Some of those trees came out in the summer of 2004.

The Southwest Florida Water Management District got on board Thursday by awarding $5,000 for plants and educational materials.

Wunderlich still has a $46,000 grant application out to the Pinellas County Environmental Fund, which he hopes the city will also match.

"We really appreciate Ray's passion and his drive and his leadership to develop this park and to improve it," said Cliff Footlick, a park operations manager for the city. At the same time, Footlick said that plans drawn up by Water and Air Research are meant to give neighbors a big-picture idea of park parameters, not to dictate those features.

Footlick said that removing exotic plants damaging to the environment should not be controversial. "The biggest question is, if you are going to relandscape with native plants, how are you going to do that?"

Several neighbors, including Shapero, lauded the 44-year-old son of physician Ray Wunderlich Jr. for his environmentally sensitive plan. None of them publicly endorsed the parking lot off Armistead Place. Already cars from elsewhere come to the pink streets area south of Pinellas Point Drive, so named for their pink concrete streets, to drink, take drugs and have sex, neighbors allege.

A parking lot would only invite more, they said.

Jackie Taylor, a driving force behind the Pinellas Point Neighborhood Watch and a parking lot opponent, said she had counted 25 children ages 3 to 8 who live in the immediate area.

Beyond removing exotic species and repairing the ground of earthmover tire tracks from the hurricane cleanup, the concept remains up in the air, waiting for neighbors to sign on. A neighborhood committee is forming to tackle the issues, which go beyond parking to the pros and cons of benches and other amenities.

Government research scientist Peter Hood said he opposed a parking lot but would not mind a bench or two. Retired Eckerd College psychologist Tom West disagreed.

"I trust you and your dad," West told Wunderlich. "But I want a park as natural as can be. That means no benches and no parking."

After the meeting, Wunderlich said that he is withdrawing his request for parking. But some residents of these leafy, shady streets laden with cul-de-sacs remain uncomfortable with any amenity that could attract more outsiders.

"If you have benches, homeless people will come and they will sleep on those benches," Shapero said. "We need to be concerned with design of plans that affect residents."

Though Wunderlich now lives on the city's north side, he described his childhood in and around the park as no outsider could. "My soul is down there," he said. "There are so many great memories."

[Last modified January 23, 2005, 00:14:21]