DAYTONA BEACH – Throughout the month of November, local restaurants from Oak Hill to Ormond Beach donated a portion of sales to Food Brings Hope to raise awareness for the unique businesses and restaurants along the US-1 corridor. Restaurant owners and city officials were welcomed to the Food Brings Hope office for a check presentation.…
TAMPA — After more than a decade of hard work, frustration and disappointment, a grocery store is finally coming to downtown Tampa’s Channel District. A 37,600-square-foot Publix is expected to open in the fall of 2017 at the corner of E Twiggs Street and N Meridian Avenue, developer Mercury Advisors of Tampa said Tuesday. “It…
Many of us enjoy watching home improvement shows — “Property Brothers,” “Love It or List It” are two of my favorites. Halfway through the show they typically discover rotten wood or unsafe wiring that brings the project to a halt. The contractor, the designer and the homeowner need to regroup, look at options, consider the budget…
BARTOW — Though funding hasn’t been allocated yet, Polk County administrators are beginning to brainstorm about extensions to the Fort Fraser Trail, a hiking and cycling path stretching from Lakeland to Bartow. One of those extensions would take the trail south through Bartow to Fort Meade. Even though plans are only preliminary, Bartow Planning Director…
Especially at moments of global crisis, it sounds petty for people in upscale parts of Greater Boston to complain that there are too many banks within walking distance. But the ample supply of branches in some neighborhoods is a first world problem in more ways than one. The same factors that have buffeted advanced Western…
The price of doing business on Clematis Street is eternal vigilance — against street closures. That’s the word from Penny Murphy, owner of Pioneer Linens, a longtime downtown West Palm Beach retailer at 210 Clematis St. “It’s like the sun comes up, and somebody closes the street,” Murphy said. Every year, and particularly during the…
The property where the Seminary Lane Apartments once stood has been vacant since 2009. And the Gainesville Community Redevelopment Agency is seeking ideas from residents as to what they want to see on the 6.25-acre site in the historic Northwest Fifth Avenue area. Sarit Sela, CRA project manager, is asking residents to voice their opinions…
Downtowns were bustling from Flagler Avenue in New Smyrna Beach, northward to Flagler Beach and west to Woodland Boulevard in DeLand as shoppers packed the sidewalks for a yearly shopping tradition. And the weather — a sunny and breezy 76 degrees — was perfect to welcome the crowds. Small Business Saturday, a yearly event that…
DETROIT — For Jazley Trouser, a 25-year-old Home Depot worker who has endured her share of hard times, the opportunity to become a homeowner was too good to pass up. With a $1,000 bid on the city’s online auction site, Trouser bought a four-bedroom Tudor plundered by thieves. A $25,000 grant from a community bank…
ST. PETERSBURG — The battle over the sale of the historic former YMCA building is over and developer Nick Ekonomou, who bought it more than a year ago, is ready to begin restoration. “The project now moves forward full steam ahead,” he said Wednesday. Ekonomou said he has hired local architect Jack Bodziak and is…
Recently at the city’s Historic Resources Preservation Board meeting, Bonnie Miskel, a land-use and zoning attorney working with developer Hudson Holdings, was making her best pitch as to why the board should approve a key zoning change to allow the $60 million Gulfstream Hotel site restoration project to inch forward. Miskel spoke in a language…
The city’s Community Redevelopment Agency and Guy Harvey Outpost Resorts are in talks about the company bringing one of its beach-inspired hotels to the downtown area. “We’d love to make it happen,” Mayor Jerry Taylor said Tuesday. Boynton Beach has long wanted a hotel to open downtown. This month, Vivian Brooks, the CRA executive director,…
Harbourside Place, the $150 million waterfront entertainment center, is the best thing to happen to Jupiter since the lighthouse was first illuminated in 1860. Or, it’s a concrete sore thumb. “There are so many choices. Restaurants, retail, shops. You’re on the water. Outdoor music. There’s even a public dock. We love this place,” said Erin…
Saying he has gone “above and beyond” meeting town requirements, Harbourside developer Nick Mastroianni blasted Jupiter officials for suspending the up to $350,000 annual payments to his $150 million waterfront entertainment center. “It’s sad to see that the public will lose the great benefit that Mayor (Karen) Golonka envisioned in this project,” Mastroianni said in…
NEW PORT RICHEY — As Main Street Landing developer Ken McGurn has acknowledged, “We’ve been beating our heads against the wall for a long time.” The project moved forward recently when the Gainesville-based developer and New Port Richey city officials finalized a pact to resurrect the riverfront project, which has been stalled since 2004, when…
Tavares hit it out of the park with its “America’s Seaplane City” branding and the development of Wooton Park. Now the city is looking to create another success with Tavares Square, a multi-million-dollar block that’s part of the city’s downtown redevelopment master plan. “We were pleasantly surprised that there was a lot of interest in…
A stretch of sleepy South Dixie Highway in West Palm Beach could be transformed into a complex featuring shops, a park and a bold vision: five glass-and-steel condominium towers, each rising 15 stories. Owners of the Prospect Place office center at 3111 S. Dixie Highway plan a $200 million redevelopment of their 9.4-acre site, which…
BARTOW — If you’re headed to any county office around the courthouse in Bartow on Monday or any other day between then and next August, expect parking to be harder to find. The parking crunch will be caused by the start of construction on a new $8 million, 679-space parking garage in what is now…
Tampa Bay’s economic progress can be measured by its companies, its job growth and GDP, its population, its corporate headquarters, its entrepreneurs, its graduation rates, its universities and its patents. Even its swagger. But progress can also be captured in its latest signature buildings. The ones with substance. The ones that represent more for this…
ST. PETERSBURG — Wengay Newton, a staunch opponent of allowing the Tampa Bay Rays to look around the region for a new stadium site, said he would support such a deal if the boundaries of the Southside Community Redevelopment Area were redrawn to include Tropicana Field’s much-coveted 85 acres. On Nov. 12, he brought that…
PORT ST. LUCIE — The Securities and Exchange Commission has frozen the assets of absentee City Center developer Lily Zhong, the agency announced Thursday. It was unclear Thursday how much of Zhong’s money is involved. The SEC alleges Zhong used money from foreign investors, intended for Port St. Lucie’s City Center and residential projects in…