Locks went up on Fort Lauderdale’s popular Dottie Mancini Park last Thursday, sparking an angry outcry from the surrounding neighborhood and beyond.
At first, some blamed the city, thinking Fort Lauderdale had closed the park. But it wasn’t Fort Lauderdale. It was Broward Health, the owner of the land.
More than 25 years ago, the city made a deal with Broward Health to lease the land for $1 a year to give people a neighborhood park with a playground, walking path and picnic tables.
The park, located at 6520 NE 22nd Ave. next to Broward Health Imperial Point, has become the go-to park for people from ages 2 to 92, nearby residents say.
Now they want to know why their neighborhood park was closed and whether it will ever reopen.
“We came to this neighborhood because of the park,” said Dusan Jaksic, whose wife and 5-year-old son would visit the park every day. “I can’t believe what they are doing. A lot of families live in apartments and don’t have backyards. This is our backyard.”
Broward Health locked up the 1.2-acre park on Dec. 7, less than a month after the lease expired.
City Manager Greg Chavarria says he met with Broward Health CEO Shane Strum this week in hopes of getting him to allow the park to reopen for the neighborhood’s annual “Winter in the Park” holiday party on Saturday.
Because Broward Health officials said they were worried about liability issues, the city has prepared an indemnity agreement and is waiting on hospital district officials to sign it, Chavarria said.
The city manager says he is also working on getting an extension on the lease so the park can stay open for at least another 20 years.
Dottie Mancini Park is already in line for $1 million in improvements as part of a $200 million parks bond approved by voters more than five years ago. But the work can’t begin until a new lease gets signed.
“We’ve been working with Broward Health to renew the lease,” Chavarria told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “It expired because we were trying to get a longer length of time for the renewal. We want to do further investments at the park so we wanted a longer lease period.”
There’s been chatter that the hospital district needs the land for a new office building. Broward Health officials won’t say, but Commissioner John Herbst, whose district includes the neighborhood, says he spoke to the hospital system about it.
“I was advised by staff from Broward Health that they’re looking to expand on their campus and include a medical office building for doctors who practice in the hospital,” Herbst said. “And the park site was contemplated for that expansion.”
Here’s a question some are asking: Is it smart to invest $1 million in a park the city does not own or have control over?
“Good question,” Mayor Dean Trantalis said. “We would not spend it on property we don’t own. And certainly not on a property whose lease is already expired.”
Trantalis says he’d like to see the city purchase the land from Broward Health so it can remain a park in perpetuity. But that’s a question for another day.
In the meantime, Broward Health remains optimistic the ongoing negotiations will result in a lease agreement with the city, said Jennifer Smith, a spokeswoman for Broward Health.
“The park sits on land which has been owned by the system since Broward Health Imperial Point was built more than 50 years ago,” Smith said. “The city began leasing the property for the park in 1997, with multiple renewals over the past few decades. When a new lease agreement was not reached, the city was given notice that due to liability issues the park would be closed.”
The city might have been given notice, but the residents weren’t, Jaksic says.
“Nobody told us anything,” he said. “I don’t know why they didn’t let us know. People should be notified.”
Jaksic says he and other families are worried the park might stay closed for good.
“Several generations use this park,” he said. “Everyone from small children swinging on the swings to seniors who walk on the walking path. I heard the park might close down forever. We can’t allow this to happen.”
Jeanne Milot says she takes her 3-year-old son and 6-year-old twin daughters to the park just about every day.
But when they headed to the park on Saturday, they were stunned to see the gate padlocked.
“I thought they were just cleaning the bathrooms,” Milot said. “But then someone drove by and told me it had been closed the whole day. It just caught me off guard. No one was aware of this at all. There was no warning.”
All the kids are sad about losing their little playground, Milot said.
“They had friendships that were built there and they don’t understand why the park shut down,” she said. “One lady in a wheelchair goes there every day to just have a little bit of fresh air. There’s many, many people who are affected by this. It’s a shame because they have no park to go to now.”
Susannah Bryan can be reached at sbryan@sunsentinel.com. Follow me on X @Susannah_Bryan