West Ocala passed one of its last hurdles Tuesday in getting special tax status that city officials hope will help revitalize the economically distressed area. Earlier this year, the Ocala City Council created a Community Redevelopment Area (CRA) for west Ocala. In CRAs, a portion of the property tax generated from within the CRA’s boundaries…
Webinar: Sign Regulation after Reed v. Town of Gilbert, AZSeptember 16, 2015, noon to 1:30 Cost $10 per participant Register Now! The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Reed v. Town of Gilbert may make it more difficult for local governments to regulate signs in a content neutral manner under the First Amendment. City of…
TAMPA — Mayor Bob Buckhorn and other city officials were thrilled last week when Feldman Equities submitted preliminary plans for what would be the tallest building on Florida’s west coast — a 52-story mixed-use tower on the riverfront site where Donald Trump in 2005 announced an extravagant condo project that never got off the ground.…
MANATEE — Betting on visibility and high traffic volumes, a national player in retail real estate is bringing its game to the Bayshore area of the Tamiami Trail. Casto Development, a Columbus, Ohio-based real estate investment and services firm, will start construction this fall on a small strip center that is already attracting new businesses…
LYNN HAVEN — City officials are looking to the past to map out plans for the future along Lynn Haven’s historic Florida Avenue corridor. Although the street was quiet Wednesday afternoon, Lynn Haven Community Redevelopment Agency Director Ben Janke hopes efforts from the CRA and the city’s nonprofit Main Street Organization soon will breathe life…
Winter Garden’s proposed parking garage will blend in with the city’s brick-street downtown, according to a design shown to city commissioners. The commission on Thursday unanimously approved an $8.1 million contract with Finfrock, an Apopka-based design and construction company regarded as the largest builder of parking structures in the United States. Among the company’s notable…
SEBRING — Momentum continued this week toward the sale and rehabilitation of Harder Hall. South Florida Senior Living put up a $50,000 deposit — ahead of the July 27 deadline — to continue its work on determining whether the purchase and plans for the historic hotel property are financially doable. Under the contract, if South…
The St. Petersburg City Council has taken a creative step toward breaking the destructive stadium stalemate with the Tampa Bay Rays. The council’s vote Thursday to ask Mayor Rick Kriseman to seek an Urban Land Institute study of Tropicana Field’s redevelopment potential is positive movement, and Kriseman should pursue this option. The study should not…
CLERMONT — The old fire department in downtown Clermont may disappear from the landscape soon. That’s because city officials have begun discussions about demolishing it to create additional parking downtown. Fire Chief Carle Bishop said he remembers working out of the building, located at 882 West Desoto St., behind what is still the Police…
City officials and business leaders are optimistic that good things are coming to downtown Leesburg. More bistro-type restaurants, boutiques, sidewalk cafes and a little park with benches could be popping up on West Main Street as a result of the $3.8 million Streetscape Beautification Project that was unveiled Friday. “It has set a buzz in…
A year in the making, Leesburg’s $3.8 million Main Street Streetscape project is finally finished and ready for a ceremonial unveiling today. The project was conceived as a way to transform a tired, blighted section of the city into a vibrant, inviting gateway into downtown. The ambitious undertaking, which runs 2,800 feet from U.S. 27…
Dozens of Leesburg residents, business leaders and political figures turned out Friday morning to witness the cutting of the ribbon and the ceremonial opening of Main Street following a year-long renovation. The project was conceived as a way to transform a tired, blighted section of the city into a vibrant, inviting gateway into downtown. The…
Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn unveiled a 2016 city budget Thursday that seeks to share some of the spoils that have been showered on downtown. After a decade of heavy spending in the city center, and with corporate investment downtown finally taking off, next year’s budget is an appropriate course adjustment that returns the focus to…
TAMPA — After years of its structural condition and future prospects going from bad to worse, there is hope for Tampa’s historic Jackson House. Over the past year and a half, owner Willie Robinson Jr. has deeded the storied rooming house to a nonprofit group, the Jackson House Foundation. A local firm, Bracken Engineering, has…
NEW PORT RICHEY — Owners of residential rental property are likely to a get a lot more scrutiny from the city starting Jan. 1. During a meeting Tuesday night, the New Port Richey City Council unanimously approved on first reading an ordinance that will establish an inspection program requiring residential rental property owners to meet…
ST. PETERSBURG — After at least seven years on the market, lawsuits, angry neighbors and a toxic plume, the long-vacant Raytheon facility is about to get new life. Commercial Development Co., a St. Louis company that specializes in challenged properties for development or resale is poised to buy most of the 32-acre property with 500,000…
The architects hired to create a revival plan for the Kass Circle neighborhood in the heart of old Spring Hill said, basically, that the area currently doesn’t look like much. Nearby houses are “unsightly,” according to a report produced by the University of South Florida School of Architecture and Community Design. The lack of landscaping…
DELAND — A need for more space prompted Jim Cara to move his downtown pop-culture business from the east side of Woodland Boulevard to the west, but the afternoon sun bearing down on his storefront pushed him to move even faster. “That’s the sunny side of the street. There are no tall buildings on this…
DELTONA — A mishmash of vacancies and re-purposed small businesses adjoin the city’s only motel, the former Deltona Inn, along a boulevard that City Commissioner Heidi Herzberg calls “sad.” Herzberg, who represents the city’s southwest side, and her fellow commissioners unanimously passed a resolution declaring Deltona Boulevard blighted and asking the Volusia County Council to approve…
Sanford Mayor Jeff Triplett sat in the driver’s seat of an excavator on Tuesday and knocked off a large chunk of a concrete wall to kick off the city’s demolition of a vacant one-story building on East Commercial Street near the Lake Monroe waterfront. The razing of the building, city officials said, is one of…
The city-owned parking lot at the southwest corner of Southeast 47th Terrace and Southeast 10th Place will be getting some much needed improvements after the CRA Board of Commissioners voted 7-1 Monday night in favor of paving and streetscaping work. The lot, located behind Nevermind, currently is not paved. “I think in this day and…