Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

What's Brewing

A park worth saving

By SUSAN THURSTON
Published May 6, 2005

When the park opened, then-Mayor Sandy Freedman declared it an oasis in the heart of the city.

Less than a year later, big maintenance bills loomed and at least one architecture professor called it a bad urban design.

Nearly 17 years after its 1988 debut, the small park next to 400 North Ashley Plaza - the round office building - has faded into obscurity.

The crape myrtles beg for a trimming, the grass grid is gone and the fountains don't work. From the start, keeping up this park wasn't like keeping up other parks. It's not a ball field. It was intended to be living art. The checkerboard pattern of stone tiles and grass requires careful, frequent trimming. The fountains need constant cleaning.

Until recently, the city planned to wipe out some of the park along Ashley Drive for the new Tampa Museum of Art. With those plans off the table, a group of architects, landscape architects and preservationists now wants to save the park.

First, they have to raise awareness about its significance.

The park, which backs up to the Hillsborough River, is the creation of Dan Kiley, considered by many the most important landscape architect of the 20th century. He designed more than 1,000 projects, including the Miller Residence in Columbus, Ind., the only landscape design on the National Register of Historic Places.

Kiley, who died last year, designed the park in mathematical proportion to the 31-story office tower, originally the NCNB building. The radius of the tower is 78 feet - the same distance between the park's rows of palm trees. The walkways are 13 feet wide, the height of the building's rooms.

You'd never know that walking by on Ashley. The park is several feet above street level, set back behind tiered seating that replaced an artsy water feature. Overgrown trees block the sunlight. Roots have buckled the tiles.

Hardly the place for enjoying a picnic.

In fact, the city park doesn't really have a name. The various banks that have owned the building have slapped on their names, including NCNB Plaza Park and NationsBank Plaza Park. Now it's just the park next to 400 North Ashley Plaza.

Some people like the sound of Kiley Park.

This week, the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation announced that the park made its 2005 list of 10 Most Endangered Historic Places.

In nominating it, Sue Thompson, a landscape architect in Sarasota, called the park "one of Kiley's finest works." She has taken up the cause to save it because it's one of the few Kiley gardens around.

"It's very unique," she said. "It's something we can use to build upon."

Saving the park won't be easy. Restoring it to its short-lived glory would be even harder, if not impossible.

The park has struggled from Day One. NCNB agreed to build the $2.5-million garden, provided the city would maintain it. When that proved difficult, NCNB agreed to share the costs.

Now, several owners later, maintenance has lapsed. Worse yet, water from the park leaks into the parking garage underneath.

The city can't possibly maintain a park of this complexity and was remiss to think it could. Crews can barely keep city parks mowed and trash free. Keeping Kiley park up to snuff would consume all their time.

The city needs a plan that preserves the park and boosts its visibility without busting the bank. The 350-seat amphitheater on the west edge should be incorporated into Mayor Pam Iorio's Riverwalk project. Some trees should be removed so light can reach the delicate grass grid, and access to the river should be expanded.

City Council member Linda Saul-Sena is organizing a forum and park tour next week to talk about the site and raise awareness. A panel of architects, including Harry Wolf, who designed the bank building and its two cubes, will speak at 7:30 p.m. May 13 at the Tampa Museum of Art's lecture room. A public tour of the park and buildings will start at 10 a.m. May 14.

"We need to respect the fact that this is really high-end design," Saul-Sena said. "I'm getting feedback from people (who say) let's bring it up again."

Saul-Sena would love to see an arrangement like the one for the University of Tampa's Plant Park, where volunteers oversee its care.

Beverly Hubbell, president of Friends of Plant Park, said creating a support group for the Kiley park sounds like a good idea but not until the mayor decides what to do with the site. She agrees the park could use some TLC but isn't sure who would do it.

Maybe a garden club would take it over. It's an appealing thought - having an army of local green thumbs doting on Kiley's masterpiece, giving it the dignity it never got.

THE LAST DROP: Looking for something to do for Mother's Day? Marci Shimoff, author of Chicken Soup for the Woman's Soul and Chicken Soup for the Mother's Soul, is speaking at noon Saturday at the Renaissance Tampa Hotel International Plaza. The event is part of Tampa General Hospital's Treat Yourself Well: Heart and Soul from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. The cost is $20 and includes lunch, which starts at 11:30 a.m. To register, call toll-free 1-800-822-3627.

Susan Thurston can be reached at 226-3394 or thurston@sptimes.com

[Last modified May 5, 2005, 01:31:12]