News from the Waterfront

FROM OUR PRESIDENT

Greetings!

Our first annual “Sunday Shuffle” at the St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Club was great fun for everyone! Good food and drink; old friends met and new friends were made. This will become an annual event for us and we hope you will ‘shuffle on down’ with us next year.

Our Downtown Waterfront Parks have reached celebrity status with visitors and travel writers. And for good reason, they provide beautiful open, pastoral views of Tampa Bay, shaded walkways, and venues for a wide variety of events. Our city becomes more densely impacted every year as new buildings rise and more people discover us. A major reason to live downtown is access to our amazing waterfront and its lush emerald parks. The Founders brilliantly envisioned how important their contribution of parkland would be to our city.

Did you know? Our waterfront park system is the 3^rd largest contiguous park system in North America according to noted local historian, Ray Arsenault. The city’s public waterfront is roughly 23 blocks, starting from Flora Wylie Park at the intersection of North Shore Drive and Coffee Pot Bayou Boulevard NE at the north end and extending down past Demens Landing at First Avenue and Bay Shore Drive SE, to Poynter Park at USF and on to Lassing Park in south St. Petersburg. Vinoy Park, North and South Straub Parks, the Pier and Pioneer Park are all encompassed in that stretch. The Waterfront Parks Foundation focuses on the area from Flora Wylie Park on the north to Poynter Park on the south, roughly 3.5 miles. St. Petersburg Times editor William Straub and real estate developer C. Perry Snell pooled their personal resources to purchase the land along the Bay and deeded it to the city, which officially became our waterfront park system in 1910. Our waterfront parks are arguably our city’s greatest asset and the first item of our City Charter speaks to their importance and preservation.

We are experiencing a renaissance in St. Petersburg and the pressures on our waterfront park system are more and more intense. With your help, we can preserve the precious open views to the Bay and provide appropriate spaces and amenities throughout our parks for our citizens and visitors to enjoy.

Pier Report: The city’s New Pier and Pier Approach construction is moving at a rapid pace and we should start to see some ‘vertical’ construction happening soon. The Waterfront Parks Foundation takes the care and preservation of our waterfront parks seriously and advocates tirelessly for protection of its uncluttered green space and its open views of Tampa Bay. The Foundation will remain diligent in this mission during the Pier construction.

In this issue of Park Views we profile Board Member, JP Fatseas, who works within our waterfront parks each day at the St. Petersburg Museum of Fine Arts. He is very active in our community and a valued member of our board. I think you will enjoy getting to know J.P. better.

See you in the park!

Phil Graham, Jr., President
Waterfront Parks Foundation

WFP FOUNDATION
BOARD MEMBER PROFILE:

by Therese P. Johnson

As Director of Operations for the Museum of Fine Arts, JP Fatseas needs only to peer out a window at his workplace (or from the cherry picker from which he is photographed here) to realize the importance of the downtown waterfront parks …He literally spends his days surrounded by the parklands.

He has worked at the MFA for six years, where he is responsible for security, IT, food and beverage operations, admissions, grounds and facilities. “I joined the Foundation because of my position at the museum and its location in the middle of the parks system. I’ve learned a great deal about the importance of the work of this Foundation and the power of our voice to speak on behalf of our waterfront parks. Waterfront access to residents of most coastal communities is now a ‘pay-to-play’ proposition. What we have is so valuable to our residents and keeping it available and free to the community is vitally important.”

JP was born and raised in west St. Petersburg and has always enjoyed the water. But his appreciation for the Downtown Waterfront Parks developed as a college student, when he enrolled at the University of South Florida St Petersburg to earn a degree in Business Administration and Communications. “All through college, I’d spend my spare time walking the waterfront parks, fly fishing. I remember going to class in wet shorts with seaweed on my legs. These memories made an impact on me; I realized the importance of the waterfront parks and their accessibility to everyone.”

“Growing up as a west-sider, my family never came all the way to downtown St. Pete. We would drive east as far as the Interstate and then head north or south. So I didn’t realize what we had. I now regret that I wasn’t aware of the downtown parks back then.”

JP has had the opportunity to live in Central California on the Pacific coast as well as in Athens, Greece. But St Pete was home, and It is where he returned to settle down. He and his wife, Gillian, have a 7-year-old son, Ari, and live in the Jungle area of St. Pete. “I love that I am able to call St. Pete home and that I can share all that it offers with my family.”

As a Board member, he hopes to add value to the Foundation by serving as a resource and helping promote its mission to preserve the waterfront parks. He also would like to increase the visibility of the Foundation. He is excited about how St. Pete is evolving, “St Petersburg is a wonderful city showing great progress. I want people to appreciate all that we have here, and I’m proud to help preserve one of the best parts, its parks.”

Watch for another Board member to be featured in the next edition of Park Views.

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Waterfront Parks Foundation

Be sure to check our website, waterfrontparksfoundation.org for the latest news from our downtown waterfront parks. We are working toward an interactive site that will provide the community and our visitors with the “flavor of life” on St. Pete’s waterfront.

Thanks to Velva Lee Heraty, Charlie Osterholt and Mike Johnson for providing photos.

Waterfront Parks Foundation Mission:
To support preservation and enhancement of the historic downtown waterfront parks
for the enjoyment of residents and visitors of St. Petersburg.

Website: