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Flatwoods Park adding a 3-acre campsite

By late next year, campers could be enjoying a swath that includes six to eight cabins, a fire pit and a restroom.

By EMILY NIPPS
Published October 2, 2005

NEW TAMPA - Not far from the traffic on Bruce B. Downs Boulevard, Flatwoods Park has provided a scenic escape for bikers and in-line skaters since the early 1990s. Hikers and nature trail lovers have enjoyed it since the 1980s.

Soon, the 3,500-acre New Tampa park will open its grounds to some new activities: sleeping, showering and marshmallow roasting.

Officials are preparing to build a Flatwoods Park campsite, with six or eight primitive cabins, a fire pit and a central restroom with showers. Hillsborough County is still in the permitting and construction bidding process, but officials hope the project will be completed by late next year.

It will be the final phase of construction for Flatwoods.

"This has been part of the conceptual plan (for the park) since the 1970s," said park manager Steve Shepherd. "The park has been evolving all along, and we finally got the funding to do the campsite."

The 3-acre site will be the first camping grounds for northern Hillsborough County and the first campsite with cabins in the entire county.

"It won't be the Hyatt," county parks spokesman John Brill said, "but it will have a standard bathroom-shower facility and maybe some kind of conference center for team-building workshops and things like that."

Brill said it has not been determined whether the campsite will be open to the public or will be limited to groups on retreats.

The county earmarked $275,000 out of its half-cent Community Investment Tax allocations, which will go toward the cabins, and the Southwest Florida Water Management District has agreed to pay $1.8-million for infrastructure. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was supposed to do the infrastructure work but became sidetracked by natural disasters and other projects, so Swiftmud took over. Swiftmud hopes to eventually be reimbursed $900,000 by the Corps.

Flatwoods Park is one of the county's most popular parks, with its paved bike trails and wild pigs, deer, rare birds and other wildlife. Nearly 100,000 people used the park in 2003-04, the last time the county counted.

"It's paradise," Brill said. "And it's within five or 10 minutes away from thousands of people."

[Last modified October 1, 2005, 09:52:03]