New Tampa All Abilities Playground Breaks Ground

When K-Bar Ranch resident Pauline Sturtevant lived in California, she would drive 30 minutes, sometimes more, to the nearest all-abilities park for her son Caleb, who has Downs Syndrome.

It was the only place she could find with swings that were designed to hold his neck up properly, slides with higher sides to prevent him from falling off, or even a ramp to accommodate Caleb’s still-developing walking skills. 

Caleb is 17 now, and while he may be too old for it, Pauline Sturtevant is thrilled that other parents will have a similar park closer to their homes in New Tampa.

“It’s important, you just don’t realize how much,” she said. ‘‘For the parents to feel like someone took the time to think about (a project like this), to make sure their kids were included and had a place to go, was super important.”

On Feb. 14, ground was broken at the New Tampa Community Park on the City of Tampa’s first disability and sensory-friendly playground.

District 7 Tampa City Council member Luis Viera, who championed the New Tampa All Abilities Playground almost immediately after being elected in 2016, echoed Pauline Sturtevant’s message at the groundbreaking.

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“You are not alone,” Viera told the crowd, which included members of the New Tampa Players’ Penguin Project, a theatre program for children and young adults with special needs. “You have friends, you have family, you have people who have been through this many many years before…and you have the City of Tampa having your back and making sure everyone has a place at the table.”

The 10,000-sq.-ft. park will cost roughly $2 million — paid for by city money and American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) federal funding — and will include multiple play pieces that are wheelchair-accessible, a sensory area geared towards children with autism and other sensory or cognitive challenges, a new art mural based on a “Fantastic Florida Nature” theme, and more.

At the groundbreaking, City of Tampa Mayor Jane Castor said that the park will have “16 different opportunities involving all of the sensory abilities in that park. It will be fantastic.”

Mayor Castor said the importance of parks in the development of a number of skills in children is sometimes taken for granted.

Making the city’s parks more accessible to everyone is a movement she strongly supports.

“I feel everything starts at parks and recreation, out on those fields,” Castor said. “That’s where children learn the life skills, that’s where they make lifelong friendships, and that’s where healthy skills and attitudes are developed. It all starts with ‘Hey, you wanna play?’”

For children with special needs, regular playgrounds can be a haven for emotional discomfort and even injuries, and it is easy for them to shrink away in fear. Pauline Sturtevant says it always pained her to see special needs children sitting on the sidelines at most other parks, and “developing a mentality that they are different and should be in a different place.”

Now, they will have their own place.

“The families are excited,” said Melissa Ewen, the director of fellowship and special connections, a special needs ministry at St. James United Methodist Church, also located in Tampa Palms. “Most of the ones I talk to have older high school or adult-aged family members, but for them it’s a sigh of relief. They know the challenges they faced; others won’t have to.”