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Oakford Park Is 'Wonderful' Area

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By JAMIE PILARCZYK, The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 19, 2007

OAKFORD PARK - If there was one thing her community was missing, Kathy Echevarria said, it was sidewalks.

'A lot of our streets have ditches or stormwater drains, which makes it hard to have a sidewalk,' said Echevarria, founding president and current secretary of the Oakford Park Neighborhood Association.

The association's president, John Hudson, has been working all summer with the city on a plan for sidewalks on North A and Lemon streets from Himes to MacDill avenues and on Bradford Avenue from Kennedy Boulevard to Cypress Street. He said construction should begin as soon as the permitting process is complete.

'These will be easy sections to do,' Hudson said. 'I feel it's an important part of the city, being so close to Kennedy.'

Oakford Park is bordered by Cypress to the north, Kennedy to the south, MacDill to the east and Dale Mabry Highway to the west.

Hudson took office in March 2006, shortly after moving into the neighborhood.

An Arkansas native, he moved to Tampa after graduating from the University of Mississippi in 2003.

'I had never been introduced to so many great cultures and such a mix of cultures,' said Hudson, who works in real estate. 'I met a lot of friends here. Everyone says hello. Everyone is out watering their plants and working in their yard. It's a wonderful neighborhood. Moving here was the best thing that happened.'

Echevarria and her husband, Emilio, moved into a home on North Beverly Avenue on Thanksgiving Day 1959.

'We built it - there were no others around,' she said.

Their oyster shell street wasn't paved until the mid-1960s.

By 1965, the Echevarrias had their fifth child and were too busy to move out of their 'starter house.' They never moved.

'It's the most convenient place to be,' Echevarria said.

Neighbors gather at an annual picnic for 'lots of talking, a lot of stories and a lot of food,' said Hudson, who brought his Paula Deen peanut butter cookies to this year's hot dog feast.

When the city built a park on a triangular piece of Tampa Electric Co. easement at Sterling Avenue and Gray Street, residents helped the landscaping efforts with a neighborhood planting.

With commercial development increasing and adult businesses looming off Kennedy, residents said the association gives them more of a voice to keep their neighborhood up to par. That's why they formed the group in 2001.

'We're a mom-and-pop neighborhood in a lot of ways and we like it like that,' Hudson said.

AT A GLANCE

WHAT: Oakford Park Neighborhood Association
RESIDENCES: About 700

HISTORY: Association was incorporated in 2001; the neighborhood's first homes were built in the 1950s

MEETINGS: Second Monday of the month at Fellowship Lodge Building No. 265, 306 N. Lincoln Ave.; reorganizational meeting at 6:30 p.m. Monday

MEMBERSHIP: $10 a year

CONTACT: John Hudson at oakfordpark@gmail.com or Kathy Echevarria at (813) 240-5272

Reporter Jamie Pilarczyk can be reached at (813) 835-2114 or jpilarczyk@tampatrib.com.

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