Construction for the 15,000-square foot center began in June 2010. Funding for the project, totaling about $2.5 million, came from Community Investment Tax funds.
In Hillsborough County, $1.2 billion has been generated in 13 years through Community Investment Tax funds to pay for improvements to the area, including education, public safety, transportation, water, parks, libraries, museums, and government facilities.
"This was a phenomenally good deal," said Greg Boyer, the city's new director of the Parks and Recreation Department.
The center includes a gymnasium, a warming kitchen, a computer classroom, a multipurpose room, a splash pad, a playground and a sports field. The Virginia Rivers Creative Arts Studio, named after Virginia Rivers, the founder and creative director of the Creative Arts Theater, is also held in the Springhill center. The studio has three classrooms and a performance workshop for theater and performing arts programs.
"You don't want a cookie-cutter center," Boyer said. "This was designed around what the community needs."
A partnership with the Boys & Girls Clubs of Tampa will allow the center to host an after-school program for children, which the students of Shaw Elementary School saw as a godsend.
"I really want to take dance lessons," said 11-year-old Leevesha Jackson. "Probably hip-hop."
Without the center, 11-year-old Naudia Toole said they had "nowhere" to hang out.
In the atrium hangs "Spring Rain," a blue and white glass mobile created by local artist Susan Gott.
Gott was asked to design a hanging sculpture that could light up. In her Phoenix Glass Studio in Seminole Heights, she and Sulphur Springs students designed the glasswork.
"I thought about the movement of water and the Hillsborough River that flows through here," she said. "That's what created Sulphur Springs."
Earlier in the month, the new center won an Award of Excellence for Public Participation from the city of Tampa.
Recently, Sulphur Springs has seen a community-wide improvement. According to a 2010 Tampa Bay Times article, the area's median income was $10,500, compared to a countywide median income of $49,762 in 2008. From 2008 to 2009, Sulphur Springs Elementary School's state grade increased from an F to a B.
Before the ribbon cutting ceremony, guest speakers expressed their hopes for the future of the community with the new center.
Buckhorn, keeping his message short to get out of the heat, credited former mayor Pam Iorio with the project.
"We cannot quit on Sulphur Springs," he said.
