Good News From Florida’s CRAs

One by one, your excuses for not making downtown Stuart’s entertainment district your regular weekend spot are getting scratched off the list. Read full article

TAVARES — City officials are poised to start a worldwide search for developers and investors to build a recreation, retail and entertainment square in downtown, adjacent to City Hall. The plaza dubbed “Tavares Square” would take over the property of the clerk of courts’ Public Records Center, which the city agreed to buy from Lake County for about…

The city of Tavares, which transformed itself from a dreary government town with nowhere to get lunch into America’s Seaplane City over the past several years, is about to take the next step — but it should tread carefully. The new idea is to demolish the building where the clerk of the court’s recording section remains…

PANAMA CITY — One boat is fully submerged in Watson Bayou, with only its mast sticking up out of the water. Another is partially submerged, and a few more are just falling apart. The Panama City CRA wants to clear these and several others — at least five vessels — out of the Bayou. “Watson…

Downtowner Car Wash owners appeared before the CRA Commission Monday night following the City Council meeting at City Hall with a proposed development for their third location in Cape Coral. It amounted to a courtesy presentation since the proposed site for the car wash is located outside the CRA’s core area on Cape Coral Parkway…

SEBRING — The Sebring Community Redevelopment Agency has a deal for local builders and it involves free land. The CRA and the City of Sebring are seeking proposals from licensed contractors and developers for the residential development of five city-owned vacant lots located in the CRA district. The successful applicant will be given the parcel…

Central Avenue business owners will be armed with evidence next week when Naples City Council discusses the avenue’s history, proposed traffic-calming measures and a 2005 plan they hope council again will adopt. Read full article

The Florida League of Cities (FLC) offers new and ongoing training through a variety of methods: regional summits, workshops and presentations for local and regional leagues, webinars, training for new and veteran elected officials and more! The FLC University was designed to offer our cities a variety of excellent Florida specific classes, with plenty of…

The New Market Tax Credit Program (NMTC) was established by Congress in 2000 to spur new or increased investments into operating businesses and real estate project located in low-income communities. The NMTC Program attracts investment capital to low-income communities by permitting individual and corporate investors to receive a tax credit against their Federal income tax…

The Bo Diddley Community Plaza has just been closed for a year-long renovation project that will give the public space a fresh look and new features for people to enjoy once it eventually reopens. The plaza officially closed March 1, forcing any homeless people who were staying there as well as the weekly Union Street…

Michael Mitchell, the event coordinator for the Civil War re-enactment Raid on the Suwannee, informed the Live Oak Community Redevelopment Agency of the success of last year’s event during a recent CRA meeting. Mitchell said he was able to return money back to the CRA, per an agreement, and received a lot of positive feedback…

AVON PARK – It has now been over a year and a month since the vote was taken to officially pursue grants in an effort to beautify and upgrade the blight while bringing back the positive vibrancy of its yesteryear. Jan. 8, 2014, the five-member Avon Park Southside Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) voted unanimously to…

BRADENTON — The future of Bradenton’s community redevelopment agencies may depend on who controls the money. A prolonged debate between Bradenton officials broke out Wednesday morning over the future of the four city CRAs, including the 14th Street West CRA, Central Community Redevelopment Agency in East Bradenton, Bradenton CRA and the Bradenton Downtown Development Authority,…

A fragment of rare pine rockland is not a slum — for the time being, anyway. Miami-Dade County Commissioner Dennis Moss said Tuesday he was indefinitely postponing a plan to declare land around Zoo Miami blighted to help pay for a Disney-style theme park while he worked out a better way to balance environmental concerns…

The company that owns and runs the largest mall in America wants to build an even bigger one in northwestern Miami-Dade, a roughly 200-acre entertainment complex with submarines, a Legoland, sea lions and an artificial ski slope. Backed by the owner of Minnesota’s Mall of America, American Dream Miami is proposed for land at the…

SEBRING – A two-year artistic journey came to a close Tuesday for Michigan sculptor Ray Katz as “Stargazer” glided onto a concrete pad at downtown’s Centennial Park. The 600-pound sculpture made of welded and fabricated aluminum is one of nine artistic pieces on display for viewing as part of the 2015 Downtown Sebring CRA Sculptures…

INVERNESS — Merriam-Webster defines blight as something that spoils the appearance or completeness of a thing. Urban blight is an area in a “damaged or worsened condition,” according to the dictionary. Then there is the Inverness City Council’s definition of blight, as spelled out in a resolution passed this week: A condition detrimental to the sound…

Carmike Cinemas opened a new 12-screen theater Friday along U.S. 1, bringing the movies back to New Smyrna Beach for the first time in almost a year. The city’s old movie complex, the Beacon 12, had been open at 1401 S. Dixie Freeway in the New Smyrna Beach Shopping Center since 1995, but closed in…

DELAND — An Orlando-based developer — which recently opened a beachside hotel in Daytona Beach Shores — has bought an old building with plans of turning it into downtown DeLand’s only large hotel. Avista Hotels & Resorts has purchased the Gould Building at 308 N. Woodland Blvd. for $900,000 in a transaction that closed Thursday. The…

Saturday’s Downtown Marketplace starts around 6:30 a.m. on Friday for Ahmet Sezgin. He starts to mix 12 batches of dough that will eventually turn into around 80 loaves of bread spread across his table for hungry shoppers at the weekly market. In its 21st year, the market set in the Park Avenue Chain of Parks…

Ocala Mayor Kent Guinn said he is not heartless when it comes to homeless people. He just wants them out of Ocala’s downtown so others can visit the shops and restaurants without being harassed by panhandlers who, he contends, sometimes become aggressive. Guinn said he has reached out personally to down-and-out individuals outside Starbucks, his…