DAYTONA BEACH — Bringing big hotel and retail developments to the beachfront used to take a big taxpayer investment. And that money was supposed to accomplish big goals: revive the beachside, attract tourists with more money to burn and draw conventions to the Ocean Center. Those goals are still there today — as big as…
MainStreet DeLand Association has found its successor for the executive director who is leaving the organization June 15. Beginning July 1, D. Wayne Carter will fill the vacancy created by the resignation of Mary Beth Harris, who is relocating to South Florida with her family. Carter was selected from 12 “qualified candidates,” said Savannah-Jane Griffin,…
AmeriCorps and Habitat seek to revitalize Pensacola neighborhood Habitat for Humanity staff and AmeriCorps volunteers kicked off the 2013 AmeriCorps Build-a-Thon in Pensacola today, a week of community development projects in the Westside Garden District Neighborhood in Pensacola.About 80 AmeriCorps volunteers from across the country along with about 20 Pensacola Habitat for Humanity volunteers and…
Council prepares ballot for Aquarium expansion The City of Clearwater gave the Clearwater Marine Aquarium its current facility on Island Estates. Now, CMA wants to build a $160 million facility on the downtown waterfront property currently occupied by city hall. It is negotiating up to a 60-year lease, and this time, it is not a…
Marion County Commission approves Silver Springs CRA County commissioners on Tuesday created a special tax district intended to bolster the appearance and economic appeal of Silver Springs. The board voted unanimously to establish a Community Redevelopment Area, or CRA, a roughly 4,100-acre zone around Silver Springs wherein new tax revenues will be banked to build…
Maximizing potential for Milton’s riverfront Efforts to maximize the potential of downtown Milton and the entire western bank of the Blackwater River are headed to a new level. The City of Milton in partnership with the Santa Rosa County Tourist Development Council has hired Peter J. Smith & Co., a consultant from Buffalo, N.Y., to…
Uptown Delray could be next residential project in city’s downtown Live, work, play: It’s the mantra of developers wanting to build in downtown Delray Beach. Uptown Delray, a project proposed on Southeast Second Street two blocks south of Atlantic Avenue, wants in on the excitement. The City Commission will consider the project Tuesday at its…
Suburbia is now home to the largest and fastest growing poor population in the country and more than half of the metropolitan poor. Yet the place-based antipoverty infrastructure built over the past several decades does not fit this rapidly changing geography. Confronting Suburban Poverty in America paints a new picture of poverty in the United…
Delray CRA offers land for development If you’re a developer with a creative project in mind, the Delray Beach Community Redevelopment Agency may be looking for you. The agency recently announced it is looking for development proposals for a 5.5-acre property it owns on the south side of West Atlantic Avenue, between Southwest Sixth and…
Downtown housing in NSB could start across from City Hall NEW SMYRNA BEACH — A push to spur downtown housing that stalled last year is re-emerging with property just across from City Hall once again as the focus. City officials are readying a request for proposals to sell an almost 2-acre site at the corner…
CLOUD COMPUTING CONCEPTS GETS $38,000 INCENTIVE FROM DELRAY CRA Globally recognized tech firm to relocate from Boca MEDIA RELEASE June 5, 2013 DELRAY BEACH, Fla.—The Delray Beach Community Redevelopment Agency has approved an incentive of $38,023.85 for the technology and IT services firm Cloud Computing Concepts (C3) to relocate its corporate headquarters from Boca Raton…
Bills clamp down on ‘brownfields’ designations after reports Two bills signed by Gov. Rick Scott within the past week will restrict the designation of “brownfield” redevelopment sites that are eligible for state tax credits. Brownfields are described in state law as property for which development, expansion or reuse may be complicated “by actual or perceived…
Pinellas considers special taxing districts for poor neighborhoods Encouraged by nascent plans for a special taxing district south of downtown St. Petersburg, the Pinellas County Commission is considering using the same method of stoking development in four other low-income areas of the county. East Tarpon Springs, North Greenwood, Highpoint, parts of Lealman, and neighborhoods south…
Downtown site brings strong response for Boynton Beach farmers market settling in at new site BOYNTON BEACH —With the summer approaching, the managers of a fledgling farmers market have high hopes — especially now that they’ve moved from a vacant lot along busy Federal Highway to an intimate city park. “They love the location. It’s…
Outlet center buildings rise on old Palm Beach Mall property Walls are going up on the Palm Beach Outlets, the project replacing the 45-year-old Palm Beach Mall, even as the old mall is still being demolished. After about a million square feet of mall was pulled down, construction crews started on foundations and poured cement…
A ‘downtown’ for Coral Springs? New vision unfolds CORAL SPRINGS—Build a new City Hall — and make it an attraction for a new downtown. Instead of burying canals, turn them into destination places, like the famous San Antonio River Walk where tourists can raft with paddle boats alongside quaint outdoor cafes. And that downtown…
Sarasota Golf Club to be sold, developed into housing SARASOTA – Chris Hatton bought his home in 1998, in part because it had a nice view of the Sarasota Golf Club’s links. But now, the peaceful greens, the palms and the moss-covered oak trees that line the 15th fairway in his backyard will be ripped…
Eliminating one-way streets would revitalize downtown Brooksville The time has come to take back our streets, to take back our town. They were snatched away from us — at least control of them was — at 8 o’clock one evening in March 1993, when the state Department of Transportation abruptly changed the traffic flow on…
Delray Beach’s Federal Highway gets facelift The much awaited face lift of Federal Highway in Delray Beach is about to begin. Almost 11 years after the project was conceived, crews are expected to begin improvements Monday: landscaped medians, decorative street lighting and paver sidewalks along northbound and southbound U.S. 1 from George Bush Boulevard to…
Coral Springs seeks public input on future downtown CORAL SPRINGS— There will be special meetings this week to discuss what the city commission — and the public — envisions for creating a downtown near University Drive and Sample Road. On Wednesday, city staff and members from the Urban Land Institute, a nonprofit land use group,…
Winter Park right to be snobby about counter service Winter Park didn’t become Winter Park by putting up with bourgeois counter service. And it has no intention of starting now. Go ahead, insert your own Winter Park snob joke here. Because this is the same place where you can glance into a passing baby…