Warm Mineral Springs is a community jewel. Let's make it sparkle again.

One of the best road trips I have taken since moving to Florida was to Weeki Watchee Springs to watch mermaid auditions for the underwater shows that have taken place at the park since 1947.

I’d read about the roadside attraction’s history – founded by a former Navy Frogman who cleaned the springs of rusted refrigerators and abandoned cars, built the underground amphitheater and invented the compressed air water hose system that keeps the performers alive – and watched a grainy black and white newsreel of ‘50s bathing beauties blowing bubbles and eating bananas underwater.

But I had no idea what I’d encounter 70 years later. The part of me that is far too familiar with Florida’s penchant for paving over paradise was braced for a letdown.

Instead, I was delighted to discover that while the mermaid shows had been updated to include Disney characters, everything at the park remained pretty much as unspoiled as it had been when my grandparents stopped there on their drive from Michigan decades ago. From the untouched natural beauty of the waters (a year-round 72 degrees) to the rustic benches providing audience seating in the underground amphitheater, it was like stepping back in time to a simpler, less technology-oriented world.

I thought of that trip recently as I contemplated the fate of North Port’s Warm Mineral Springs, which has been in limbo since a public-private partnership intended to develop the majority of the 83-acre property was terminated in February, ostensibly over the developer’s concerns about the cost of insurance and a still-unreleased geotechnical survey (due out next month).

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“Personally, I called that a divine intervention,” says North Port Commissioner Debbie McDowell, the lone commissioner who voted against the “intensification” project, which would have brought a resort hotel and condominiums to the site. “This is our history, this is unique to North Port and we don’t have many unique places. It absolutely deserves attention for preservation and to be historically respected.”

As at Weeki Watchee, that history includes the springs’ use by Native American tribes. Archaeologists pulled bones out of the springs in the 1970s that have been carbon dated back 10,000 years, changing conclusions about where people were in North America at that time. Originally a collapsed sinkhole and a rare inland fresh water source, with water temperatures of 87 degrees year-round, its outlet still provides the only warm water refuge for manatees in Southwest Florida.

“Try to find another parcel of property where human use of the piece of land has gone on uninterrupted for 12,000 years,” says Jon Thaxton, senior vice president for community leadership with the Gulf Coast Community Foundation and a fifth generation Floridian. “That’s unbelievable.”

The three buildings on the site, constructed for the Florida Quadricentennial Celebration in 1960 (reputedly by Jack West, a member of the Sarasota School of Architecture), are beloved historic structures in North Port (along with the Warm Mineral Springs Motel, which has been annexed by the city as a historic site).

The interior walls of the most architecturally-significant – the cylindrical Cyclorama – are covered in murals that tell a pictorial story of the area’s discovery by the explorer Juan Ponce de Leon in 1513, who thought it was the Fountain of Youth. Listed on both the city’s and the National Register of Historic Places, all three were dealt a destructive blow by Hurricane Ian in 2022.

Though North Port’s Parks and Recreation Department reopened the springs for bathers last year and is now operating year-round, it relies on a temporary admissions building and a portable restroom trailer; the dilapidated historic building complex, which included a gift shop, showers, restrooms, changing facilities and lockers, remains closed.

At the time of the public-private partnership's dissolution, local officials called for creative alternatives to reactivate the site. Two citizen surveys have previously established the vast majority of residents wish for the venue to remain undeveloped. The city of North Port has $9 million available for renovation, however, the $19 million estimated for completely restoring the site in a 2019 Master Plan is likely now insufficient.

North Port City Manager Jerome Fletcher says he has discussed a number of options with groups and individuals over the past two months, including a lobbyist willing to go to bat to get the venue designated, like Weeki Watchee, a state park. But the most promising of these, he believes, is Thaxton’s idea for the county to essentially “buy” back the partnership with the city it gave up for $6 million many years ago and, combined with the city’s available funds, purchase a conservation easement through the Environmentally Sensitive Lands Protection Program (ESLPP).

That proposal would protect the springs, its gopher tortoise population and the manatee habitat. But it would not include the frontage along U.S. 41 that contains the three historic buildings, nor satisfy those whose priority is that the springs become an economic driver for North Port. So, ideally, other private or nonprofit entities would join the effort, taking on the restoration of the buildings and developing whatever other amenities would stir eco-tourism.

Neil Rainford, the Sarasota County commissioner who represents the area but is better known as a champion of private sector development, has publicly called for governmental agencies to work together to keep the springs open to the public as a “precious natural resource.”  Citizen activist Pat Rounds has suggested funds could be raised through a Tourist Development Tax bond, something Sarasota County’s Office of Financial Management says is possible, but “would really depend on the project.” The Sarasota Alliance for Historic Preservation has offered to help identify funding sources available for restoration of historically designated buildings. And a North Port citizens’ group has been meeting to brainstorm other funding streams.

The combination of a “world-class spring” and a high quality park surrounding it could be “a money maker,” Thaxton believes. Meanwhile, however, a bid is already in process for demolition of the buildings.

There are so many levels on which Warm Mineral Springs deserves to be rescued and preserved as the natural, historical, archaeological, architectural and geological wonder it is. The optimal solution would be for all of these entities – city, county, community nonprofits, historic preservationists, residents and yes, even a developer with a vision to capitalize tastefully on the nostalgia factor – to work together.

How hard would that be?

“Damn hard,” says Thaxton. “I was asked the same question 12 years ago about The Bay Conservancy and I had the same answer. For every one opportunity to go right, there’s 20 opportunities to go wrong.

“That’s the reality,” Thaxton adds. “But the other reality is, if we don’t try, it definitely won’t happen.”

Contact Carrie Seidman at carrie.seidman@gmail.com or 505-238-0392. 

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Warm Mineral Springs deserves to remain a Sarasota County fixture