Then there's the history of Ballard Park - a tract of land used by the neighborhood's namesake to reward good students with pieces of property.
Whether it's the flora, the houses or the history, something has given Ballard Park an allure, even one that faded as the neighborhood deteriorated.
With the push of suburban sprawl, this compact corner tucked at the southwestern edge of downtown swept itself into a cycle of change that took it from prime to pitiable.
But pitiable has turned to promise.
At least that's what investors think - and what residents have started to see.
Peter Arguelles purchased a Ballard Park duplex in March. The 2,000-square-foot building on Eighth Avenue West generates about $1,200 in rent a month, but he didn't buy the property just for that.
"It's in walking distance to downtown, and the older homes have a lot of character that you don't find in a newer subdivision," Arguelles said. "I felt that this would become a very desirable area to live."
From the quiet streets of the neighborhood, downtown buildings can be seen and the buzz of cars on Tamiami Trail can be heard.
"In any growing city, if you buy around a city center, where it's being gentrified, it's money," Arguelles said. "People who look at that neighborhood and say it's not a good neighborhood - they don't know what they're passing up."
When Josie Cirranello moved with her husband, Tony, to Sarasota from North Carolina in 1997, the couple rented an apartment there for two years before finding a house they wanted. They scoured the area and fell for a two-story home in Ballard Park. It was along the edge of Wares Creek and in need of remodeling.
"We wanted to be in an older home, not in a development where all the houses looked alike," Josie Cirranello said. "We wanted something with character, something we could make our own."
In their first years in the neighborhood, the Cirranellos had to deal with drug houses, abandoned properties, vandals and prostitutes.
But neighbors began working with city police and code enforcement officers to change Ballard Park. They started meeting regularly, alerting police whenever there was a problem.
Broken-window theory
Drug cases were rampant and transients slept near and around the shuffleboard and lawn bowling courts, a landmark on the eastern edge of the neighborhood that fronts Tamiami Trail. But then in 2003-04, crime appeared to drop almost by half, says Bradenton Police Lt. Ed Kish, who used to patrol the area. He saw significant declines in stolen vehicles and burglaries.
Crime dropped, Kish says, in part because of an active neighborhood association. The group hasn't met in at least a year, after many of the active residents sold their properties to a developer looking to build townhouses along Wares Creek.
That migration had a negative effect on Ballard Park, Kish said, but it hasn't reverted back too far.
