WATER & COAST
Bonnet Springs Park
Polk County · Central Florida
A 168-acre park in downtown Lakeland built on a contaminated rail yard, opened in 2022 and privately funded.
ABOUT THIS PLACE
A CSX rail yard handled about 25 trains a day here until it closed in 1952, and what it left behind was 300,000 cubic yards of soil contaminated with arsenic and roughly 37 tons of dumped trash. Rather than truck it away, the designers sculpted the contaminated soil into two hills and capped them with clean earth, so the ground the park sits on is the problem it solved. Carol Jenkins Barnett, formerly president of Publix Super Markets Charities, put up much of the early money before her death in 2021, with Barney Barnett, David Bunch and Bill Tinsley among the other founders. The landscape firm Sasaki began the plan in 2017 after six months of public consultation. The park opened in October 2022 across 168 acres, holding the Crenshaw Canopy Walk, the Harrell Family Botanical Gardens and greenhouse, the Florida Children's Museum, a treehouse playground, six miles of trail, a restaurant and a rooftop bar. USA Today placed it first among city parks in the country in 2025
Keep comparing