Turns out two gators have been standing sentry over the Gainesville hotel that never was. Who knew?
“I’ve been driving and walking past the Seagle building for 58 years, right?” Mayor Harvey Ward said. But it wasn’t until John Fleming, managing partner of Trimark Properties, took Ward on a tour of the 100-year-old Seagle Building that he noticed the two metal gators perched above Gainesville’s first “skyscraper.”
They had been easy to miss.
The Seagle hadn’t been painted in decades, and their visibility was further obscured by a shabby green entrance canopy that had seen better days. After years of neglect, Fleming said, the twin gators were lost amid “the faded paint and the mold.”
No more. The canopy is gone and will soon be replaced with a modern glass-and-steel entrance. The Seagle now boasts a fresh coat of paint with detailed trim, and hundreds of windows have been replaced or refurbished.
Fleming also had the gators restored with gold leaf and set against a dark background to make them stand out.
It’s just one detail in an extensive renovation of the Gainesville landmark, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, whose original construction began a century ago this past February.
“I don’t know what it looked like in 1937, when they finally finished it, but it’s gonna look better than it ever has,” Fleming said. “It’s gonna be solid, and it’s gonna be here for another 50 years.”
The renovation — or reinvention, really — could total about $20 million by the time it’s complete, including private investment, condo association special assessments, and, not to forget, nearly $150,000 in Gainesville Community Redevelopment Agency grants.