NEW SMYRNA BEACH — Steps away from shaded clusters of indigo plants — lingering remnants of the lucrative dye-producing plant the first settlers planted and harvested 250 years ago — several government officials and residents gathered to unveil the long-awaited Holland Park.
Mayor Jim Hathaway cut ribbon recently on the 30-acre park at 357 Otter Blvd., just south of Pioneer Trail and west of the historic Turnbull Creek in what city officials hope is the start of a wider effort to preserve more land in the area.
The city purchased the property for $1.2 million in 2012. Since acquiring the land, the city built some basics. There is a restroom facility and an unpaved parking lot, along with access points to the multi-use trail, a bike stand and picnic area. The mayor said there were originally plans to put in a kayak launch at the creek and a fishing dock. Those extras were over budget, and the project went through multiple design changes, but he said the beauty of nature and the preservation of it remained the city's focus.
"It's taken us a long time to get here," Hathaway said to a crowd of about 40 on Friday morning. "As you can see, it's a passive park. It's meant to be what it is, to enjoy the beautiful nature that surrounds us."
Michelle Vallance, the city's capital improvements plan manager walked alongside City Manager Pam Brangaccio, taking in the sights and explaining the importance of the purchase down the multi-use, 2.2-mile trail that bisects the city-owned land.
"We developed the south parcel for Holland Park and (preserved) the north parcel," Vallance said. "It's essentially, like the mayor said, a passive park intended to park your vehicle, unload your bike, go for a ride, come back and use the facilities and go home."
And city officials want more of these passive, preserved spaces as a booming economy and development threatens chip away at the pristine areas that make the city such a desirable place to live and visit. Recently, the city responded to public outcry over development by starting a process of examining the purchase of land along the historically, culturally and environmentally significant Turnbull Creek to preserve in perpetuity that may involve asking for voters’ permission to borrow money to do it.
"We call this the hole in the doughnut and we knew we wanted to preserve it," said City Manager Pam Brangaccio of the newly christened park to the crowd. "There was a story in (Friday's) News-Journal about the city's plan to try to move foward and try to purchase additional property and hopefully go out for a (general obligation) bond this November. If you look both ways on the creek, we're surrounded by the land that we're talking about moving forward to ask our citizens in terms of buying it for preservation."
After a short walk east of Holland Park down the trail, Brangaccio stood on the pedestrian bridge overlooking a stunning vista of the Turnbull Creek Watershed.
"This creek was hand-dug by the Turnbull settlers," Brangaccio said, pointing north along the creek where in the distance she could see the busy Pioneer Trail, as trail-goers passed by and aircraft soared overhead toward the nearby airport. "This is the creek they used to haul (the indigo harvest) out."
She spun around.
"South, you feel like you're stuck in a time warp," she said. The manager gestured to the acres of Florida wetlands overseen only by wildlife and the mirrored surface waters of the creek. "So imagine 350 homes here."
Brangaccio was talking about a project called Turnbull Trace, which she said is acreage along the eastern side of the creek that's zoned for a planned development and was approved pre-recession. Turnbull Trace stalled after the downturn, much like other development projects that have resurfaced in recent years.
Because of that, Brangaccio said the property is one of the city's prime targets for acquisition, and talks with the landowner have begun.
She paused and looked out over the water as bird song outflanked the sounds of cars and construction.
"You can see the beauty of the creek," she said. "When its not this rainy, this water is actually very clear. It's very, very pretty in the wintertime."