Big plans attach to tiny key

Tampa BayWatch will move from its headquarters to a new education center on Cunningham Key. The acquisition may also speed the extension of the Pinellas Trail.

By JON WILSON

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 30, 2000

ST. PETERSBURG -- Boards cover the old bait shop. A hunk of it even hangs from a cord, swaying in a breeze. A derelict hull squats on concrete blocks. Seawalls are broken, a rubble pile shows its jagged edges and splayed beer cans lie flat in the dirt.

But a new era is coming to Cunningham Key after state and county governments pitched in to buy it last week for $714,000.

The spit of land on the way to Fort De Soto is about to become home to a marine science and education center that boosters believe will throw a spotlight on Tampa Bay and its ongoing restoration efforts.

"It's a dream come true," said Peter Clark, director of Tampa BayWatch, a group that has worked on restoring and protecting the bay's environment since 1993.

BayWatch will move from its current headquarters on Snell Isle Boulevard to a new center on the key, where several classrooms and BayWatch boat facilities also will be built.

Construction could start in less than a year, Clark said.

"It's ideal. It's a new frontier for the organization," Clark said. "It'll help define our activities for years to come."

The new center will put BayWatch inside its restoration target area and make the learning experience more attractive to students who help the agency with its projects.

Salt marsh restoration is a typical project. Clark estimates more than 10,000 students have have put in 60,000 plugs of sea grass around Tampa Bay in five years. Now, he said, the students -- most from middle and high school -- will be able to step out the back door of marine classrooms and go to work.

"What better way to learn about the bay than to replant a salt marsh habitat?" Clark said.

Cunningham Key has not been a marquee name among south Pinellas County's string of beaches and islands, although during the early 1960s it made news as one of the links in the road-building project to Fort De Soto.

It is not a tourist destination, and most residents couldn't point it out quickly on a map.

The 16 acres of land -- 14 of them are sea grass beds and mangrove forest -- lie just before the 35-cent toll bridge, the second toll station motorists encounter on the way to Fort De Soto.

The land, which sits on both sides of County Road 679, also was home for years to the bait shop, now abandoned.

The Times' Jeff Klinkenberg occasionally wrote about Big Bill and Martha Tuerffs, a colorful couple who owned Bayway Bait and Tackle for 16 years. They lived on the property, which they called a garden of Eden. They died within months of each other in 1980, and their ashes were scattered around the key.

Gov. Jeb Bush and the Cabinet approved Cunningham Key's purchase last week. Though the vote was unanimous, things weren't as smooth last fall. The state government's top executives didn't want to buy then.

Clark, county real estate manager Ellyn Kadel and Sarah Richardson, a senior assistant county attorney argued the case again, this time successfully.

"We certainly tried," Kadel said, noting that questions about land use had to be answered to the satisfaction of state officials. A small commercial development could have been built on the key, though some officials had long been interested in keeping the land public.

"We all feel like what Peter's going to be doing there is unique. I haven't heard of another trailside marine station," Kadel said, noting that an estimated 2.6-million annual visitors to Fort De Soto will give bay restoration efforts wide exposure.

Plans call for the BayWatch headquarters and classrooms to be built on the west side of the key, which looks across the water to Mullet Key and other lesser known spots of land called Sawyer Key and Sister Key.

An extension of the Pinellas Trail, whose main line runs from Gibbs High School to Tarpon Springs, also is on the drawing board, though it could be several years before it becomes reality.

"It's in the Penny for Pinellas budget over the next 10 years," Kadel said. "It's my belief that the Cunningham Key acquisition makes it easier to go ahead with the design. That might put it within the five-year window."

The trail would run down the key's east side, where an informational kiosk also would be installed.

The current layout of the key doesn't make it one of the more popular spots for anglers or boaters, even those with canoes or water scooters. The route to Fort De Soto offers more convenient spots.

The key "will be a public facility, but not be open 24 hours a day necessarily," Clark said. No fees are planned, he said.

Fishing and small-craft activities will probably have to move to the key's east side, away from the mangroves, Clark said.

"Part of the problem since it has been unrestricted access is people dumping and littering," he said.

That era appears to be ending.

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.