The Bartow CRA is investing approximately $800,000 in amenity improvements at the Polk Street Community Center, the City recreation complex at 1255 W. Polk Street. The CRA is providing the funding; the City of Bartow’s Parks, Recreation & Cultural Arts department is delivering the work. It is a straightforward division of labor between two public agencies with the same objective, which is a better park for the neighborhood that uses it.
The site already does a great deal of work for the community. It holds a baseball field with a concession stand and press box, an outdoor basketball court, a pavilion, two playgrounds, meeting rooms, restrooms, and a fitness center. What it has not had in some time is a coordinated reinvestment in the surfaces, plantings, and play equipment that determine whether families stay for an afternoon or pass through on the way to somewhere else.
The improvements plan addresses that directly. The scope runs from repaving the parking lot to new landscaping and buffer plantings along the Polk Street and Gordon Avenue frontages, and then to a substantially expanded play area. Project renderings show two shaded play structures with slides and climbers set on poured rubber safety surfacing, ground-level play panels and transfer features designed for accessibility, a shade sail, and a shade pavilion. A splash pad is under consideration as part of the same package.
Polk Street is identified as a priority project within the CRA’s bond-funded capital program, listed alongside the agency’s other catalytic investments rather than treated as a stand-alone item. That placement matters. It reflects a judgment, made deliberately, that parks are among the largest stakeholders in a redevelopment district, and that a recreation facility serving families every week is as much a redevelopment asset as a building on Main Street. (This project is separate from the CRA’s Street Resurfacing Program, which covers roadway work across the District.)
The plan is the first step, and it now exists: a documented amenities program, site plan, and renderings that show what the park will become. From here, the work moves into delivery. Residents will see the changes in a familiar sequence: a repaved and restriped lot, new plantings taking hold along the buffers, then the play area itself. When the work is finished, the Polk Street Community Center will offer shade, accessible play, and a reason for families to spend the whole afternoon in a park that has served this part of Bartow for years.
Project Documents
The full amenities program, site plan, and renderings for the Polk Street Community Center improvements.
