FORT MYERS, Fla. — Fort Myers is seeking to expand its network of pocket parks and green spaces on vacant lots throughout the community, providing the community with more opportunities to enjoy the outdoors without needing to travel to larger parks.
Watch Fort Myers Community Correspondent Miyoshi Price explain the 'pocket park' concept:
Karen Van Voesschoten, who lives about a mile from Common Ground Park next to the Franklin Shops, appreciates these small urban retreats.
"This is a little spot that you can sit and relax," Van Voesschoten said. "The beauty of it, number one, and that it's an area that you can just sit down and rest for a couple of minutes. As soon as you get out onto the street, you're walking and shopping and eating and dining and things like that, it's a nice place to sit."
Throughout a recent lunch hour, Price observed various people sitting down or walking through to enjoy the scenery at Common Ground Park, including Lindsey Karczewski.
When asked if Fort Myers should create more pocket parks on vacant lots, Karczewski was enthusiastic.
"Yes, definitely, with green space, plants, foliage, and seating, of course. And the lighting is really nice," Karczewski said.
Dr. Melanie Long, Assistant Director at the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA), explains that pocket parks are small, underutilized spaces often less than half an acre.
The lot on First Street next to the Franklin Shops became the city's second pocket park after being identified as an opportunity.
"We had been walking past this space many, many a time, and it had become a really kind of, I don't know, like a desert in the middle of our lovely downtown," Long said.
According to Long, the first pocket park in the city is Velasco Village.
The process for creating additional pocket parks involves collaboration between multiple departments.
"The process is that we look for spaces, and we work with the Parks and Recreation Department. They're the ones who have to keep the park up. So it's not us in the CRA keeping the park up. And so we work with them closely," Long said. "If they find a place that they think a good pocket park would go with, where it would be a good pocket park, and it's in one of the redevelopment areas, because we only do work in the redevelopment area. So if those two things are happening, we're so happy to find a way to try and get that pocket park in."
While another pocket park isn't planned yet, community input is being sought. Long invites the community to attend a meeting on Tuesday at City Hall at 12:30 p.m.
"Please come on out and you can give your input on where you think the next pocket park would go," Long said.
For Van Voesschoten, these pocket parks add to her reasons for moving to downtown Fort Myers.
"We love it," she said.
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