The Political Whore

By Manny Leto
PoHo contributor

Kiley Gardens, the hotly contested riverfront park nestled between Kennedy Boulevard and the new Tampa Museum of Art off of Ashley Street, will be saved after all.

Well, most of it will be saved.

Locals have fought for years to restore the park, designed by world-renowned landscape architect, Dan Kiley. Completed in 1988 and neglected almost from the beginning, when plans for the new art museum were announced back in 2000 during the Greco administration, Kiley Gardens was scheduled for demolition. It seems that in Tampa, to create art, you must destroy art, which is, I’m sure, exactly the postmodern statement city officials were trying to make. Irony notwithstanding, local architects and others began to speak out. After what is now nearly a decade of debate, studies and grass roots activism, which reached a highpoint in 2005 and 2006, the Downtown Partnership hosted a forum this morning to assess the current plans for Kiley.

Longtime Kiley advocate, Chris Vela of the Urban Charrette, and developers, Chuck Jablon of Skanska and Morris Lopez of Par Development participated in a panel discussion and, despite years of neglect and poor construction, the news looks promising.

Problems with the park’s original construction were myriad. Drainage was insufficient, causing the brackish water of the Hillsborough River to backflow into the gardens, killing the crape myrtles. Sprinklers and irrigation systems leaked into the parking garage below. The large limestone pavers and topsoil were too heavy for the garage’s crumbling supports. Even the crape myrtles themselves, planted back in 1988, were the wrong species.

Skanka and Lopez’s company, Par Development, made number of upgrades to restore Kiley to at least part of its original luster. New drainage, waterproofing, irrigation and sprinklers have been installed. Soil has been replaced with a lighter hybrid of sand, rock and topsoil, lessening the weight load on the parking garage below. Many of Kiley’s original pavers have been restored and reinstalled. Several water features have also been restored and, although they are not part of the first phase of restoration, the reflecting pools at the Ashley Street entrance (shown above as they were originally installed) have been brought up to code and are ready to be re-activated.

Because the park could not support the weight of heavy machinery, almost all of the work has been done the old-fashioned way — by hand.

Although the city has eliminated about a half-acre of the park’s northern edge to accommodate the museum, Chuck Jablon with Skanska assured the audience that Kiley’s original design and proportions have been maintained.

The park is scheduled to re-open sometime in October.

Here’s a brief a timeline of events surrounding Kiley Gardens

1988
Work is completed on what will become known as Kiley Gardens, designed to compliment Harry Wolf’s 33-story circular office building, once home to NCNB Bank, commonly referred to as “The Beer Can Building.” I’ll let the folks at Landscape Architecture Magazine describe it for you:

“NCNB Plaza was a masterful downtown ensemble at the edge of the Hillsborough River … based on rigorous application of the proportional system of Fibonacci numbers … Allées of lofty native palm trees crossed the site, drawing the eye to the river. The geometry of the tower and banking hall … inspired an intricate pattern of grass and paving stones, fountains, and runnels. Water features were everywhere: shallow pools along Ashley Drive, a water garden … and a north—south canal topping a 400-foot-long corridor …The canal served as a portal from the street to the elevated plaza, an armature tying everything together. As counterpoint to the site’s geometry, Kiley and Wolf created an understory of hundreds of randomly placed crape myrtle trees…” Sounds nice, huh?

1990’s
Kiley Gardens is notoriously underutilized and is a favorite hang out for high school kids and skateboarders. It is commonly known as “Trip Park.” Duuuude, Get it?

1997
President Bill Clinton awards Dan Kiley the National Medal of the Arts.

2003
Creative Loafing (Then Weekly Planet) writer Susan Edwards runs series of articles entitled, “The Secret Garden,” reporting that plans for the new Tampa Museum of Art called for the demolition of Kiley Gardens.

February 2004
Dan Kiley dies at the age of 91.

May 2005
Local architects Chris Vela and Philip Crosby form Yard OPS, begin staging park clean ups and advocating for the restoration of Kiley Gardens.

The National Cultural Landscape Foundation tours Kiley with Councilwoman Linda Saul Sena.

Florida Trust for Historic Preservation places Kiley on it’s “11 Most Endangered Sites” list.

June 2005
Vela and Crosby appear on the cover of Creative Loafing.

Late 2005
Yard Ops meets with Iorio Administration, who suggests the group form a Non-profit.

Vela and Crosby are awarded the American Institute of Architects Presidents Award for their work trying to save Kiley Gardens.

Yard Ops becomes Friends of Kiley Gardens.

March 2006
City workers set upon the crape myrtles of Kiley Gardens with chainsaws (at right). Councilwoman Linda Saul Sena calls the act a “massacre.”

Late 2006
After clearing away the trees, the city begins dismantling Kiley Gardens to assess the extent of the damage to the parking garage and determine the costs associated with restoration.

2007
The city issues an RFQ for The “for the construction of the Waterfront Park, New Museum of Art, Children’s Museum, and Repair of Kiley Gardens on N. Ashley Drive.” The artist renderings show what it will become.

City allocates roughly $4 million to renovate a portion of Kiley Gardens.

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