That’s Subculture Coffee co-owner Sean Scott’s idea for opening communications between city hall and downtown businesses. The Clematis Street uber-barrista put out the word last week on Facebook to fellow business owners to join him in meeting with Mayor Jeri Muoio and other West Palm Beach officials on a regular basis about issues of concern: “I…
Just as state transportation officials are preparing a call for bids to rebuild Interstate 395 as an elevated span with a soaring “signature bridge” over Biscayne Boulevard and park space beneath it, civic leaders aiming to create open urban space around the adjacent Arsht Center have done them one better. On Thursday, they released a…
Miami-Dade County’s plan to raze and redevelop Liberty Square could prove detrimental to hundreds of children and the Liberty City public schools fed by Miami’s oldest and largest public housing project, the Miami-Dade School District has warned. Weighing in for the first time since Mayor Carlos Gimenez rolled out his Liberty Square Rising proposal one year ago,…
If you’ve hung out in downtown Lake Worth, chances are you’ve seen Jon Jordan. Jordan, after all, is the co-owner of AOS Live, an outdoor event promotions company responsible for many downtown parties, including Hallowscream this past October. Jordan, 32, also co-owns Propaganda nightclub on South J Street. Music has been in Jordan’s bones since…
Hundreds of concert-goers tote their lawn chairs to amphitheaters in Wellington, West Palm Beach, Delray Beach and Lake Worth for shows that draw few complaints from nearby residents. Amphitheater at Harbourside Place. (Photo by Bill Ingram) Arguments, police calls, protests from residents, petitions from music supporters and a lawsuit by the developer against the town…
Naples City Council approved a controversial Fifth Avenue South redevelopment project last fall, more than a decade after a previous council rejected a near-identical concept based on an analysis that the plans violated the city charter. By voting against a developer’s request in 2003 to construct a three-story hotel above a level of underground parking,…
The Community Redevelopment Agency board on Thursday approved $205,000 toward improvements for a new Piggly Wiggly grocery store in a documented food desert on Tallahassee’s south side. Harveys closed May 2014 — three months after the announcement rocked nearby neighborhoods — due to its proximity to Winn-Dixie on Paul Russell Road. Harveys was an anchor store…
As the fifth-largest city in Florida and home to more than 250,000 residents, St. Petersburg is an active and mobile community. We have a thriving downtown. We have an emerging Innovation District. We have art. We have sports. We have jobs by the thousands and the ability to grow more of them with smart planning.…
CLEARWATER — It has been a missed opportunity on a prime patch of Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard for almost seven years. A nearly 10-acre shopping plaza lot, the longtime home of Kmart, has been a vacant eyesore since the retail giant left in March 2009 after 30 years. If all goes to plan, that could change as…
The The Town of Century held a second special workshop Monday with county officials to learn more about the possibility of forming a Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA). Upon declaration of an area as blighted, the CRA works to improve conditions. As property tax values rise, most of the increase is funneled back into the redevelopment…
BRADENTON — The Bradenton Downtown Development Authority and the three city community redevelopment agencies are locked into 2015-16 budgets with few expendable revenues, which could change in the next budget cycle with an expiring $1.3 million annual interlocal agreement with Manatee County freeing up money sooner than expected. That possibility has put pressure on Bradenton…
In pitching a $45 million bailout for the Frost Science Museum’s beleaguered construction effort, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez said the infusion of cash would be the last money the nonprofit should ever expect to receive from the county. But that doesn’t mean millions of dollars in county property taxes won’t provide Frost with a crucial operating subsidy…
