Pride Park Expansion OK’D
By Nick Mason, The Bradenton Herald, Fla.
Sep. 28–MANATEE — It was finally the Pride Park neighborhood’s turn Tuesday.
After years of talk and no action, and watching recreation dollars flow to other parts of Manatee County, the low-income neighborhood in south county at last got the attention it craved.
County commissioners voted 5-0 to award two construction contracts totaling more than $1.6 million for expansion of Pride Park, 815 63rd Ave. E.
“I want to say thank you for really looking at what we really need and the children in the neighborhood,” Remonia Lewis, president of Southeast Residents Association, told commissioners before the vote.
The neighborhood needs better housing and more educational programs, but the upgraded park is a good start, Lewis said later.
“It’s very important to the community,” she said. “It shows the county cares what we have down there for the children.”
Chairman Ron Getman, whose district includes Pride Park and the surrounding neighborhood, agreed with Lewis.
“This is just another piece of the puzzle to make it a nicer place to live,” Getman said.
Getman joined commissioners Gwendolyn Brown, Pat Glass, Donna Hayes and Amy Stein in approving the contracts with Tampa Contracting Services of Palmetto. Commissioners Joe McClash and Jane von Hahmann were absent.
A splash park, sand volleyball court, restrooms, two picnic pavilions and a bicycle/pedestrian path are featured recreation portions of the project. The splash park will be the county’s largest, county officials have said.
Other major project items are a road, utilities, drainage system, irrigation network, landscaping and fencing on the 7.42-acre park addition site.
Construction is expected to start within two weeks and take about 11 months, according to a background report submitted to commissioners. Commissioners could have reduced the construction time to about eight months, but that bid alternative would have cost about $92,500 more.
The expansion of Pride Park was a vision of the late Commissioner Lari Ann Harris, who died in 2000. Project planning has lasted about three years because of several delays.
Last month, commissioners put the expansion project on hold at the request of the South County Community Redevelopment Area Advisory Board, a citizens panel appointed by commissioners. The advisory board wanted a community center site identified before the park expansion moved forward. A community center site was identified later.
The delay angered leaders of the Southeast Residents Association, who lobbied for years for expansion of the original 3.68-acre park.
“We were upset because we felt the CRA tried to strong-arm us,” Lewis said Tuesday.
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