The long awaited 88-acre park system in northern Manatee County ‘will happen’

The proverbial carrot dangling just out of reach of the Washington Park community in northern Manatee County is more obtainable now than it has ever been.

The 88-acre “borrow pit” that was used in the 1950s to excavate fill for the U.S. Business 41 overpass has long been desired to be used to create a park system. Until three years ago, it wasn’t ever likely going to happen. The amount of fill needed to fill in the acreage would be about a million cubic yards, but that is the amount of fill Port Manatee needs to remove from its facilities. A cost-saving partnership was born.

“My mission, my direction from the board of commissioners and county administrator is to honor what we have promised since 2000,” said Manatee County Parks and Natural Resources Director Charlie Hunsicker to a crowd of more than 50 on Monday night in Palmetto.

“I’m going to try my hardest to work for funding needed to bring this vision to us,” he said. “We have a budget, but it’s not enough, but it’s enough to start this project. My commitment is to build that budget to make this park possible.”

The community has heard that before over decades of commissioners and county staff members, but Hunsicker said, “You haven’t heard it from me.”

The bad news is that it will take a number of years before the full 88 acres are restored and redeveloped into what Hunsicker called a “rolling hills” trails system. Permitting for such a project on acreage that has been considered wetlands since the 1980s and subsequent design and construction could take another decade.

The good news is that 19 acres on the southeastern portion of the property is high and dry and ready for construction. Hunsicker said that land won’t require any other permits outside the county. Amenities could include additional wetlands, trails, a multiuse field, playground, wetland overlooks and a central pavilion.

County Commissioner Charles Smith said the vision probably began before he was born. “But we had a vision to move this project where it is today. This project will get done,” he said.

By the Port of Manatee giving the county the dirt, it’s expected to save about $9 million, making the project more plausible than ever. It will take more than 62,000 truckloads to accomplish the task, but there is more work to do to negotiate the state regulations that protect wetlands.

“The fact is that this is a high wall to climb,” Hunsicker said. “But we’ll climb it because we have a lead partner in the Army Corps of Engineers.”

As a federal agency, the Corps has more leeway in dealing with state regulations. The Corps will argue that making the existing wetlands better than what they are today “is mitigation, too,” Hunsicker said. “It’s going to be a tough argument, but it’s something the Corps can help us through.”

The big question is how long will the existing dirt take to dry from the port’s last dredge? It’s a tedious process of moving the dirt around and letting it dry, and estimates vary but range from one to three years. Between hauling 1 million cubic yards of dirt, overcoming permitting challenges and construction, the full 88 acres of the borrow pit could take a decade or more to complete.

“But the 19 acres is something we can start this year in design and permit and look at construction by maybe the end of 2019,” Hunsicker said. “We don’t have to wait 10 years for that, we can start right now.”

This story was originally published October 30, 2017 at 9:20 PM with the headline "The long awaited 88-acre park system in northern Manatee County ‘will happen’."