A Clearwater police officer sees three vacant lots in his old neighborhood and envisions a playground. By December it should be a reality.

By CHRISTINA HEADRICK

© St. Petersburg Times,
published July 25, 2001
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CLEARWATER -- The three vacant lots on the 1000 block of N Garden Avenue are overgrown with weeds and littered with beer bottles.

But by mid December -- thanks largely to the Clearwater Police Department -- this quarter-acre eyesore will be a playground with two swing sets, three slides, platforms, tubes and a hexagonal picnic shelter.

Police Chief Sid Klein calls the future park one of the most unusual projects to evolve from the city's community policing effort.

"The Police Department is traditionally not in the park building business," Klein said. "But this is a neat project."

Making it happen required "a long, circuitous journey through property records, delinquent tax bills, complicated funding mandates and the establishment of private partnerships in a public project," Klein wrote to commissioners last week. It all started more than a year ago with Sgt. Wilton Lee Jr.

Lee, 43, grew up a few blocks from the proposed park. He became a city officer and now oversees community policing in northwest Clearwater, his old neighborhood.

The city dubs the area where the playground will go the Garden Avenue neighborhood, although there is no formal homeowners association that covers it.

The area is between Old Clearwater Bay, which ranges from new harborfront mansions to ramshackle, 80-year-old wooden homes, and North Greenwood, another old neighborhood which has historically been an African-American enclave.

Lee thought about the vacant lots on Garden Avenue in May 2000. He asked a friend, Fredd Hinson, who oversees the city's Neighborhood Services Division, if the vacant lots could be turned into a park.

"There's never been a place for some of these kids to call their own," Lee said. Going to a playground means crossing busy Fort Harrison or Myrtle avenues. Kids play by throwing footballs on their neighborhood streets or drawing with chalk on the Pinellas Trail, Lee said.

Hinson was enthusiastic about the project. His department helped police figure out that AmSouth Bank owned the land and wanted to get rid of it.

City officials then approached AmSouth, which agreed to donate the property -- if the city would pay years of unpaid taxes on the lots. The Police Department came up with the cash. About $5,124 in back taxes were paid using seized drug money, Klein said.

"That's one of the best examples I can think of in taking drug money out of the community, then putting it back in," Klein said.

Next $56,960 was needed to build the playground.

Police administrators sought $12,500 in "Weed and Seed" federal funds. An anonymous donor, who found out about the project through the North Greenwood Association, agreed to chip in $28,232. The Allegany Franciscan Foundation, a religious non-profit group, gave $4,000, and Sotto's Plumbing offered $100.

To cut costs, Klein asked St. Petersburg College building arts instructor Bob Hudson if his architectural class could design the playground for free. Hudson agreed.

The Clearwater Arts Foundation was tapped to collect donations for the park. The foundation urged Klein to agree to put a public art project in the park, such as a large fiberglass turtle that area kids could paint. The city is still looking for someone to donate about $3,700 to sponsor the turtle, Klein said.

"There are a lot of partnerships involved," Lee said.

Klein is now interested in boosting participation in the Police Department's volunteer park patrol program to keep the park safe. Hinson said the new playground also could help boost neighborhood identity in the Garden Avenue area.

Lee said he just thinks it will be cool when neighborhood kids are playing there.