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City Seeks To Improve Robles Park

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By JOSE PATINO GIRONA

jpatino@tampatrib.com

Published: December 10, 2008

TAMPA HEIGHTS - The city's Parks and Recreation Department has applied for a $200,000 state grant to improve Robles Park.

If Tampa receives the state money, it will match the amount with city money and a contribution from the F.E. Lykes Foundation.

The parks department wants to add an interactive water feature, an additional playground for toddlers and children ages 5 to 12, a ramp to assist disabled people, rubberized surface on the playground, a planting area and a small stormwater retention pond.

The plan also includes adding a picnic shelter on the southeast side of the park and rehabilitating an existing picnic shelter and restroom, said Karla Price, landscape architect for the city's parks and recreation department.

City officials hope to hear from the state in March or April. If the grant comes through the work could begin in 2010, Price said.

If the city doesn't get the state grant, it will do a scaled-down version of the rehabilitation project, adding an interactive water feature, playground equipment and retention pond, Price said. The work would start in November 2009, Price said.

"I think it invigorates the park to add something new," Price said.
Tampa Heights resident Lena Young-Green said she is optimistic but doesn't want to get too excited in case the plans fall through.

"At this point it is a matter of wait and see," Young-Green said.

"I am not going to go out and advertise it,' she said.

She has lived near the park, 3305 N. Avon Ave., since 1983. She walks the 17-acre park most mornings and helps to pick up trash.

The park is centrally located, and the community uses it regularly, Young-Green said. Youth and adult sports teams practice and play at the park, she said.

"It has improved," said Young-Green, a board member of the Tampa Heights Civic Association. "The whole area has improved... It is not where we want it to be, but it has improved."

Reporter Jose Patino Girona can be reached at (813) 259-7659.

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