Photo Credit: Courtesy of Sasaki
“Great cities have a great park,” is the mantra of the visionary client group behind Bonnet Springs Park in Lakeland, Fla. However, untouched, open green space—just waiting to be recast as public open space—is often hard to come by. The most viable parcels often are either already in use or sold and developed to drive revenue. Therefore, advocates for parks have to be creative in finding new avenues for developing public green space, leading many municipalities to look at their brownfield sites as potential long-term remediation projects. Case studies, such as Bonnet Springs Park, can help inform tactics to realize a new park on remediated land. The Bonnet Springs Park site has gone through a number of attempts to establish its best use—none of them taking hold until now. In early 2015, David Bunch, a longtime Lakeland realtor, and his wife Jean presented a bold concept to philanthropists Barney and Carol Barnett. Their vision—to create a special public place near downtown that the community could enjoy and make positive use of the underutilized land.
The local activism of these philanthropists, joined by Bill Tinsley, the former Lakeland Parks and Recreation Director, and park planners and designers, has led to an ambitious and fast-moving project that will turn a heavily contaminated brownfield site into a 180-acre park for residents.
From Brownfield To Green Oasis
Between the 1910s and 1950s, the site served as one of the most important railroad centers in Florida. The Lakeland Railyard played a vital role in moving, storing, and repairing the coal-powered locomotives that fueled the region’s economy. At one point, it was the largest employer in the city. Today, Sasaki, a global design firm based in Boston, Mass., is leading the transformation of this site. The early steps of implementation are underway, and the land will soon undergo a rigorous environmental restoration that includes soil remediation, cleaning of stormwater runoff, and restoring a sand seep spring. Then sustainable planting, programming, and architectural design can begin. Sasaki has worked closely with state environmental officials to ensure the developed strategy will meet the applicable requirements. The project is enrolled in the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Voluntary Cleanup Tax Credit program, designed to encourage landowners to remediate sites that are considered “brownfields” due to the presence of contaminants. A collaborative approach among design teams and city and state officials has helped to keep the project on track to open in 2020.