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Wait For Fountain Is Almost Over

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By KATHY STEELE

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 4, 2008

SEMINOLE HEIGHTS - A long-promised interactive fountain for Giddens Park is moving closer to a splash date.

City parks officials say the fountain passed its electrical inspection, water jets are installed and cracks in a concrete pad have been repaired. The next steps are overlaying a splash pad of bright yellow, green and blue, and building a circular sidewalk.

Work is expected to begin in the next few weeks, officials said. The goal is for children to be splashing in the fountain by summer.

"We've been waiting three summers," said Sherry Genovar-Simons, president of the Southeast Seminole Heights Civic Association. "We have an annual ice cream social for the kids, and we're purposely waiting because we want to have the ice cream social and the fountain at the same time."

The wait began in 2003, when Giddens was chosen as the first of 10 inner-city parks to benefit from collaboration by the city, the nonprofit Mayor's Beautification Program and the F.E. Lykes Foundation.

The plan was to upgrade a park a year, with the foundation donating $75,000 to each project. Robles Park is second on the list.
Tampa Heights residents last year heard of plans to improve Robles Park, including an interactive fountain, widened sidewalks, a garden, entry plazas and a bridge across the park's retention pond.

Bids on the estimated $400,000 project's first phase are expected to go out in July, although some funds won't be available until fiscal year 2009.

In practice, the one-a-year pace for Tampa's "greenprinting initiative" has proven too ambitious. So a scaled-back project is under discussion, with the foundation possibly increasing its contributions, said Debra Evenson, the beautification program's executive director.

The park projects have been stymied by problems coordinating bids and contractors, and meeting timelines, Evenson said.

The Giddens Park fountain initially was planned to be a public art project funded through the city's public art program. But residents found little to like in the several designs submitted by two New York artists.

The artists dropped out of the project in 2005, citing higher-than-expected costs to build the fountain. But the city moved forward to find a company to build the fountain.

In the interim, the city has installed fencing around the park and built a masonry enclosure for a trash container. A gazebo, landscaping and other improvements are planned, with total project costs estimated at $493,000.

In 2006, the East Tampa Community Revitalization Partnership supported giving $25,000 toward the purchase of the gazebo, with the Southeast Seminole Heights civic group raising additional funds.

Again, there have been delays, including in finding a company to supply a gazebo.

The gazebo will arrive in several weeks, parks officials said, and the city will need up to three weeks to build a platform and install the gazebo.

The city will use East Tampa property taxes to pay for landscaping and rubber child-safety surfaces around the gazebo.

Reporter Kathy Steele can be reached at (813) 835-2103 or ksteele@tampatrib.com.

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