Warm Mineral Springs: North Port residents hope to stop development of park

NORTH PORT – North Port residents seeking to sway the City Commission from its plan to use a public-private partnership to reopen Warm Mineral Springs and eventually develop the 61.4-acre park that surrounds the historical attraction are trying to boost support for their cause, including rallies near City Hall and a change.org petition.

The first rally occurred on a frigid Dec. 23 afternoon and a second one was slated for Dec. 30.

Meanwhile, following its decision to fire vendor National and State Park Concessions, the city is trying to hire as many as 10 seasonal and temporary employees to staff Warm Mineral Springs as it moves to reopen the attraction to the public in mid-March.

Related:Five things to know about Warm Mineral Springs in North Port, Florida

Related:North Port will reopen park itself after cutting contract with Warm Mineral Springs vendor

Park patrons who have been clamoring for Warm Mineral Springs to reopen soon would be happy if the city accomplished that and paused to reassess the prospect of a its development plan for potential condominiums and a hotel under a public-private partnership.

“I don’t really care who runs it as long as they run it in a responsible way,” said Joan San Lwin, a longtime park patron and co-sponsor, along with Theresa Pratt, of the change.org petition seeking to “stop overdevelopment and likely collapse of the Springs.”

As of Thursday night, 1,348 people had signed the petition. The rallies have been held at the intersection of Price and Sumter boulevards.

San Lwin said the petition was intended to raise public awareness and “hope that the commission would listen to the public and the commission to do what they need to do to keep the pristine nature of the springs intact.”

“The foremost objective has to be keeping the water as clean as it is and open to the public,” she added. “Fancy things like the massages and the facials I don’t care – bathrooms and running water and access to the springs are the three main things to me.”

Pratt, who experienced Warm Mineral Springs roughly 10 years ago, moved to North Port six years later so she could visit the springs – which are purported to have healing properties and have especially been popular with Eastern Europeans – as frequently as she wished.

“I, and many others, would just like to see the historic buildings restored and no building other than that. No building in the 61 acres" around the springs or on the 21 acres at the springs itself.

“To me that is sacred ground, that entire property,” she added. “I just feel it’s a shame that so much building is going on in Florida and there’s most probably burial grounds on the 61 acres.

“In my mind, to do any building on the 61 acres, I just feel it’s sacrilegious.”

Underground questions

Warm Mineral Springs is essentially limestone karst sinkhole likely created by those underground springs that bring in water that, early this century was as warm as 87 degrees but has since cooled to between 85 and 86 degrees.

Preservationists point to the fact that there have been no geotechnical surveys or hydrographic studies conducted to see if the ground in that 61.4 acres could support hotels or condominiums.

Faced with that uncertainty they predict catastrophe.

City Manager Jerome Fletcher says such studies would be conducted by the eventual private partner in a development deal.

Testing will be done on every level to ensure that the ground would support any development, he said.

If those tests uncovered potential problems, “then guess what? You can’t do what you thought you were going to do,” Fletcher said. “You’re going to have to pivot and go to different plans in order to make the partnership work.

“You’re not going to discount the environmental studies and the tests and say we’re going to move on and do it anyway – that’s not going to happen,” he added. “We will in no way damage or move forward with hurting something so sacred as the springs just for the sake of a partnership.”

Aiming for a March reopening

The city cut ties with its longtime contract operator for Warm Mineral Springs to ease a transition to signing a public-private partnership with an entity that would both restore the three historic buildings on the 21.6-acre historic site and develop the surrounding park.

But prior to that partnership, the city is taking steps to reopen the park itself.

Earlier:North Port picks partner for Warm Mineral Springs park development. Here’s what’s planned

Related:Colliers to market two park sites in North Port for public-private development

Unlike in March 2014, when the deal with National and State Park Concessions was forged, North Port now has a fully functional parks and recreation department – including administrative staff and lifeguards who work at the North Port Aquatic Center.

“The team that we have now, Sandy Pfundheller, our director, she’s more than capable of managing the operations; it’s just a matter of resources,” Fletcher said.

In anticipation of reopening the park to bathers, the city is looking to hire 10 seasonal/temporary positions, including two full-time and three part-time lifeguards, one supervisor, one assistant supervisor and and three part-time attendants.

A city spokesperson said that the city’s aquatics manager would oversee supervisors at both facilities.

Costs would be paid from the $619,140 in the 2022-23 fiscal year budget for professional services related to management fees at Warm Mineral Springs.

Before Warm Mineral Springs can reopen, the city plans to get a modular admissions building and portable restrooms – facilities in high demand elsewhere after Hurricane Ian – and hire a general contractor to install Americans With Disabilities Act accessible walkways and hook up electricity.

Reopening updates are posted at https://www.northportfl.gov/warmminealpringspark where people can also sign up to receive email updates.

On Dec. 14, Fletcher signed an executive order that created a process for the city to either issue prorated refunds or extend passes that can be used when it reopened.

A casualty of Hurricane Ian

If it wasn’t for Hurricane Ian, National and State Park Concessions may have operated Warm Mineral Springs right up to the point that an eventual private partner took over – even though conditions had been deteriorating – with temporary facilities brought in for showers and restrooms.

Pratt said that didn’t matter to regular patrons.

“We didn’t have restrooms and locker rooms for years and people just dealt with the trailers, with the temporary toilets or changed in their cars,” she said. “Many people have said that ... they were happy to just change in their car and not even have the lockers.

“They’re just there for the water, the healing property of the springs and enjoying the water and being in nature,” she added.

But in the eyes of Fletcher and the city, those conditions were unacceptable. A pay-as-you-go plan to develop the entire parcel according to a plan crafted by Kimley-Horn & Associates was abandoned when the bids to restore three historic buildings on the 21.6-acre springs site came in at twice the $9.4 million set aside for the job.

Shortly after that the efforts to find a private partner began in earnest.

Warm Mineral Springs Development Group LLC made a pitch in September that would include restoration of the three historic buildings, built for the Florida Quadricentennial Celebration, which ran from December 1959 to March 1960 and are believed to be designed by Sarasota School of Architecture member Jack West.

It also included developing a variety of amenities on the 61.4 acres, including condominiums, a spa and a hotel – a move that would also put those amenities on the tax rolls.

Fletcher noted that while WMS Development Group is first in line, the city is nowhere near picking a partner.

An eventual partner would also host a series of public meetings, similar to those conducted when the Kimley-Horn park plan was crafted, to allow the public to have input on the proposal.

Earlier:North Port solicits input for Warm Mineral Springs master plan

Fletcher said that while many vocal current bathers may prefer the status quo, the city has a responsibility to clean and restore the springs site and do so in a way that does not burden the taxpayers and grow the overall tax base.

“There are 80,000 people in the city and the people who pay taxes in the city would say to all of us as government officials, 'we want you to do everything you can to spread the tax burden around as much as you can,'” Fletcher said. “So why would you not look at something that can be used to help do that?”

Pratt is not one of those people.

“I hope the city manager and the commission do right by the taxpayers and the springs and they stop this – they don’t go through with the" partnership plan, she said. “Let them do it somewhere else. I mean honestly I would rather have my property taxes go up than have the springs developed.”

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: North Port residents hope city will not develop Warm Mineral Springs