The Trail From Question To Answer...

Or MARIA'S ANSWER

Subject:
Mayor's Town H all Meeting: Giddens Park

Message:
Ms. Maria Garcia has some questions on upcoming renovations to Giddens Park. She is interested in organizing a meeting between the Civic association and parks and Rec to discuss how together the parks renovations can become a reality.Many thanks
9/18/2006
11:45 AM
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9/18/2006
3:34 PM
Note


Maria Garcia

Message:
This request was submitted by Lorena Rivas, Neighborhood Liaison, Neighborhood and Community Relations Office, to be examined by Parks and Recreation staff.Respectfully,Lorena RivasNeighborhood Liaison
9/18/2006
4:41 PM
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Office Support Specialist IV, Parks and Recreation
9/19/2006
9:32 AM
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11/9/2006
4:23 PM
Closed


Office Support Specialist IV, Parks and Recreation
Email was directed to:Maria Garcia (Requestor)
Other Actions:- Message status changed to Closed

Message:
Dear Ms. Garcia,I apologize for the delay in responding to your inquiry regarding Giddens Park. I was told there were some other citizens inquiring about this project and a letter was being written to explain the project in detail. I have copied the main content of that letter for you below and hope this answers some of your questions or concerns. Should you want to set up a meeting between the Civic Association and the Parks & Recreation staff, please contact our Planning & Design office at 813-231-1330. Thank you for your interest.The Parks & Recreation Department, in our task to maintain and upkeep the City’s park facilities, works with numerous organizations in both private and public partnership. The Mayor’s Beautification Program launched Tampa’s Greenprinting Initiative in 2002 with seed money from the F.E. Lykes Foundation, with the idea of revitalizing ten public open space resources in Tampa’s inner city.The first neighborhood chosen was South East Seminole Heights, and we knew from the beginning that we would definitely be learning as we went along, since such a program had never before been undertaken. With the coordination of the Mayor’s Beautification Program, we found a landscape architect for the conceptual design work (with site elements determined by community input) and an engineering firm for the construction documents, both firms willing to offer their services pro bono. The final master plan was approved by the neighborhood in 2003, and the engineering firm finalized construction documents based on the master plan in January 2005. The construction documents passed through permitting and went out to bid in July 2005. Construction of the site elements for which we had funding began November 2005. We had sufficient money based on available City funds and a federal CDBG grant to construct the on-site parking lot, the interior sidewalks, and the perimeter fence with brick columns at the main entry, as well as the necessary grading work for the retention ponds which were designed and built to handle all the impervious surface that the entire master plan will require.We had additionally planned a gazebo at the western end of the park and Leadership Tampa decided to adopt this site element as their 2003 fundraiser, raising $16,877 towards this item. Unfortunately in the last year, prices on steel have risen sharply and repeatedly: the current cost of the shelter as approved by both the neighborhood and the Parks & Recreation Department is $65,375. We have requested TIF funds to cover the short fall and have implemented a purchase order request based on the vendor’s most recent quote. Once we have the purchase order, the vendor will requisition the factory to build the unit, a 10-14 week process. He will also forward the engineering plans so that we might start the permitting process, which ideally will be complete before the unit arrives. Once we have the unit and the permit, actual construction is expected to take 3-4 weeks, depending on weather and subsurface conditions.We also planned an interactive water feature, an element shown in the construction documents conceptually. We originally thought that we would add an artistic element to the water feature using funding from Art in Public Places. That prospect fell through and we had to start over using a design/build firm. After several meetings with the neighborhood committee, the design was approved May 2006 and the plans were submitted to the Department of Health (DOH) for review and permitting. As of August 2006, we received DOH approval and the design/build firm has ordered the filtration system and begun work to install the subgrade equipment in the center of the fountain. The F.E. Lykes Foundation funding had been ear-marked for the creation of a water feature of some sort at each Greenprinting Initiative site, and on this site, that $75,000 seed money along with the $4,854 raised by the neighborhood will cover the cost of the interactive water feature. This is scheduled to be installed this month per the design/build contractor.The perimeter fencing is the site element that we consider the most valuable lesson we learned in this first Greenprinting experience. During the construction phase, our department and the Construction Administration division chose this fencing option due to budget constraints and after consulting with the neighborhood committee, but in hindsight, the material is simply not substantial enough to stand up to the rigors of the situation, primarily vandalism. Since this time, the fence company has developed a new line of steel fencing that contains less steel than their high-end fencing lines and is far more substantial than the aluminum version. We are coordinating with our City-wide fencing contractor for a quote to replace the fencing panels using this new line, starting on the west end of the site as that area is more impacted than the east end.Future elements of the master plan will eventually be implemented by the City of Tampa, but the timeframe of that implementation is not certain. Fundraising by the neighborhood, whether through grant writing or soliciting of donations, will be necessary if a shorter timeframe is desired than can be achieved by City efforts alone. But that is the reason for working with organizations such as the Mayor’s Beautification Program: together and with the assistance of the community, we can achieve our mutual vision for the future of Tampa more swiftly than we could if relying solely on City funding.
11/9/2006
4:31 PM
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