Bayview Park's New Turf Went In Before Its Master Plan Did

On September 4, 2025, crews at Bayview Park pulled the grass off Pepe Hernandez Field. Two weeks later they graded the exposed dirt with gravel. By October 1, workers were spraying water over new AstroTurf, settling a wood-based infill called BrockFILL into the surface. Six acres from the front porches of The Meadows, this was the first piece of Bayview Park's long-promised renovation to actually get built.

It also was not the piece most residents had been asking for.

The Vote That Decided What Got Built First

In June 2025, the Key West City Commission approved $987,738 to purchase and install artificial turf at Pepe Hernandez Field. Then-Commissioner Kaufman tried to postpone that purchase and hold back $317,808 of the funding instead, proposing it go toward a professional master plan that would cover Bayview Park's needs as one project, with a full accounting of elements, costs and phases, rather than letting the park get built one line item at a time. The postponement didn't happen. The turf got its money and its construction schedule. The comprehensive plan didn't get either.

That sequencing matters because Bayview Park has been the subject of city planning conversations since at least 2021, when a resident survey conducted as part of the city's broader master planning process flagged park upgrades as a priority. Four years later, the ballfield is done. The rest of the park is still catching up to that survey.

What Residents Actually Asked For

The clearest public record of what people wanted came at a February 8, 2024 city commission meeting. Nearly a dozen residents showed up carrying signs asking for a splash pad, modeled on the one already running at Truman Waterfront Park a few blocks away. Heather Jane Graub, who lives next to Bayview Park, thanked then-city manager Al Childress for listening to neighbors' safety concerns and described conditions at the park that made her uneasy, including finding people passed out near the restrooms her kids needed to use. Linda Wheeler, a longtime resident, pointed to the Truman Waterfront splash pad as proof the concept worked, noting it draws kids year-round for birthday parties and doesn't require a lifeguard.

Commissioners at that meeting seemed receptive. No vote was scheduled. The city's own website still lists a splash pad only as something under consideration, not as a funded or scheduled element of the project.

The Courts Nobody's Rebuilt Yet

The scope the city has actually committed bond funding to, according to its Bayview Park Renovations page, includes new landscaping and irrigation work, a new restroom facility with lockable bathrooms, and a new tennis pro shop. A separate citywide capital summary adds one more detail: the plan includes relocating the tennis courts within the park, alongside new picnic tables, benches and improved lighting.

Those courts are not an afterthought for the neighborhood. Island City Tennis runs five lighted hard courts at Bayview Park, open 365 days a year with no reservation system, just a 45-minute or one-set limit so courts rotate through the day. Paul Findlay has run the program for decades, long enough that a 2011 petition to keep him on staff cited a 28-year tenure at that point. His son, Yann Findlay, now teaches lessons there too. That's the actual daily-use infrastructure sitting inside a renovation plan that still describes its own court relocation as a future step rather than a scheduled one.

The October Date That's Already Slipped Once

The city's website currently estimates construction on the park's remaining scope will begin in October 2026. That's next month. It's also not the first time an October start date has been floated for this project. Keys Weekly reported in February 2024 that construction could begin that October, adding a plan hadn't been finalized. It wasn't. The turf field got built on its own separate track in 2025, and the broader renovation slid another two years past its first projected start.

None of that means the current October 2026 estimate won't hold. It means the park's own paper trail shows this kind of date has moved before.

A Proposal to Change How Park Input Works

Members of the city's Parks and Recreation Advisory Board disagreed at a recent meeting about whether the Bayview Park project is moving ahead without a fully developed master plan. Assistant City Attorney Ryan Waterhouse spoke to the board about the limits of its authority during that discussion.

On May 28, the board approved a proposal from Chair Heidi Roberts recommending that the City Commission sunset the board and replace it with informal public input hosted by the Parks and Recreation Department. That recommendation is now written into an ordinance, File 26-5701, sponsored administratively by City Manager Brian Barroso. It would repeal the ordinance that created the board and place public input under the Parks and Recreation Department.

Kaufman, who as a commissioner sought to set aside master-plan funding in 2025, was newly sworn in as mayor when the proposal surfaced.

What Still Runs at Bayview Park Right Now

Whatever happens with the master plan, most of what makes Bayview Park a daily fixture for The Meadows hasn't paused for any of this. Pepe Hernandez Field hosts co-ed softball games Monday through Thursday year round with roughly 250 players moving through the league. The Southernmost Boys & Girls Club operates its after-school and summer programs out of its building at the park, serving more than 100 kids a day. The park still hosts the annual Florida Keys Seafood Festival each January and the Police Athletic League's Mango Fest each June.

One thing has already moved. The Thursday market that used to set up at Bayview Park now runs out of Truman Waterfront Park instead, a shift that tracks with the city's own acknowledgment that ballfield and open-space use at Bayview has changed since the larger Truman Waterfront grounds opened nearby.

For a neighborhood that borders this park on one side, the practical read is straightforward. The turf is in and being used. The tennis courts, pro shop and restrooms are funded but still without a construction date on the ground, tied to a project estimate that has already slipped once. A splash pad remains a request, not a line item. And a proposed ordinance would replace the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board with public input hosted by the department.

If you live near Bayview Park and want a straight answer on what's actually scheduled versus what's still on paper, Lori Langton keeps track of these changes the same way she tracks the market in The Meadows. Schedule a free consultation to talk through what's happening at the park next door.