Park open as Lee Parks director informs chamber
Ironically, on the day that Crescent State Family Park near Times Square opens, Lee County Parks & Recreation Director Barbara Manzo serves as the bearer of good news as the guest speaker at the monthly Greater Fort Myers Beach Area Chamber of Commerce luncheon at Pastabilities.
Manzo, who has worked for the county parks department for more than 39 years, pointed out the new beachfront park -opened on Thursday- will be added to the recreation facilities list on the next Lee Parks “Come Discover” brochure. A ribbon cutting ceremony with County and Town officials may happen in the near future.
“Crescent Beach Family Park was purchased with Tourist Development Council funds,” she said. “With it came the parcel across the street known as Seafarer’s Plaza. The County did not necessarily wish to purchase Seafarer’s Mall, but it was part of the deal.”
Manzo, who received her BS in Recreation at SUNY-Cortland, Masters in Recreation Administration at NYU and MBA at Pace University in New York City, explained the dilemma and solution for providing parking for the beachfront park before disclosing her department’s aspirations for the park’s uses.
“The parcel at a beach park has no parking with the exception of two handicap spaces so that folks with disabilities can access the beach directly from that side,” she said. “We then realized that the Seafarer’s Plaza gave us an opportunity, at least temporarily while we work through some issues with the Town, to create some additional parking across the street and not have to put that parking on the park.
“I’m hoping that we’ll be able to attract some of our events that take place out of the parking lot at Lynn Hall Park and actually put them on the beach park. We have some beach volleyball equipment we will be putting up and we’ll see how the folks utilize that particular facility.”
The county park director did thank Town Manager Terry Stewart (in attendance) for the use of two portable bathroom units on the new park’s property. Due to the area’s flood zone, the mobility of the bathrooms is a key element.
Those interested in providing recommendations for further uses at the new open Crescent Beach Family Park can contact the county parks department at 533-7275.
Manzo gave overviews of the county’s Conservation 20/20 program -37 preserves or other environmentally sensitive lands for more than 20,000 acres with the possibility of adding 24 more parcels for an increase of more than 10,000 more acres- as well as notifying about three large recreation centers and numerous parks built within the past 8 years.
“We had a 10-year plan, and I’m happy to say we met that plan. We’ve had to scale a little bit down due to the downturn in the economy and the lack of funds going into the impact fee accounts, but we have been able to basically build everything that was on the plan,” she said.
Manzo then explained the differences between community parks and regional parks; spoke about City of Palms park (which was deeded over to the County by the City in 2004/ swim center is still in running for taking over complex); Jet Blue Park (the Red Sox park beginning next year); and sports tourism (bringing in $100 million a year in economic impact without the baseball stadiums/ Twins and Red Sox stadium add another $50 to $60 million in tourism revenue).
“Community parks are parks we can reproduce anywhere within the county that folks can go to and see similar facilities like playgrounds, playing fields, picnic tables and athletic facilities for youth sports. Regional Parks have facilities recognized by all people at set places such as sports stadiums and can be as small as a beach access,” she said.
Stewart thanked Manzo and the county staff for their efforts in the new beachfront park construction.
“They really did a fine job with minimal resources. What they have done with the resources they had is outstanding,” he said.
Manzo expanded his thoughts into the hidden problems during the park’s construction.
“We started out by wanting to sift through the sand. That sifting turned into finding major stuff underground. That took a lot longer than expected,” she said. “We were very fortunate we didn’t find any major contamination under there. That was our big concern. If we had found anything contaminated, we would have been shut down a long time trying to clean that up. We were lucky.”