Good News From Florida’s CRAs

Affordable Housing Funding Programs – Get $120 Million from Foreclosure Settlement The House unanimously passed SB 1852 this week, spending $200 million that is part of a multistate settlement with five large banks for fraudulent foreclosure practices. The package contains spending on affordable housing programs favored by the Senate, and funding for Habitat for Humanity…

Space Florida News Read the full news articles here. On April 22, Space Florida hosted a public workshop to educate 50+ stakeholders and garner feedback from those interested in proposing projects for the organization’s Spaceport Master Plan. The plan, compiled every two to three years, provides information to guide Space Florida in its efforts to…

CRAs get creative: Improving the aesthetics of the everyday  By Rachel Galvin Art is about more than just painting on a canvas, a photograph in a frame or a sculpture in a museum; it is about the beauty in our daily lives. Everything from the landscaping to the architecture around us can be considered art. The…

th!nk Technologies Group Powered by LSeven is one of a growing number of technology firms setting up shop downtown, creating a high-tech hub in Ocala’s central core. “We love it downtown,” said Matthew Villella who, along with partner Christopher Oleson, moved the company to 101 NE First Ave. five months ago. “You have a corridor,…

Tampa’s West Shore area has the largest concentration of office space in Florida — and the cold and congested environment to prove it. Nobody thinks of the area as a place to walk, bicycle or sit at a sidewalk cafe. But that could change in the years ahead under a master plan being put forward…

SEBRING – The Sebring Community Redevelopment Agency will host speaker Marjorie Ferrer, executive director for the Delray Beach Downtown Development Authority and an expert on downtown revitalization and redevelopment, at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at the Jack R. Stroup Civic Center. As executive director for the Delray Beach DDA since 1993, Ferrer has spearheaded the revitalization…

The future of the city’s ambitious Midtown project, a proposed residential and commercial district on 85 acres south of downtown, got a boost this week when legislators approved a bill to help cities considering urban renewal projects tackle stormwater runoff issues more easily. The legislation approved unanimously in the Florida House on Tuesday and three…

NAPLES — Whether it becomes a mixed-use complex or a city park, the 19-acre Grand Central Station Property near downtown Naples won’t be available for event parking much longer. So City Council took steps Wednesday to find other parking options in the city, both for the short and long term. “We are at the beginning…

After reading the most recent email exchange between Fernandina Beach City Manager Joe Gerrity and developer Dick Goodsell, it appears that the only private project under development for the city’s riverfront Community Redevelopment Area (CRA) has now been shelved indefinitely. An April 23, 2013 post entitled Does the City of Fernandina Beach want riverfront development? …

TREASURE ISLAND — As part of a continuing effort to encourage hotel and retail development, city officials have presented a plan to create a new zoning district they say will allow developers more flexibility. The new zoning category — a planned development district — is aimed at attracting more hoteliers by increasing allowable densities while…

Frank Mannadmits he was frustrated. Presented with an opportunity to lure a Fortune 500 company headquarters to Lee County, commissioners were asked to vote on a $4.6 million incentive package this week. The only hiccup — they don’t know what company they’re luring. “It just kind of seems absurd,” Mann said of the vote to…

Mount Dora CRA – Downtown Streetscape Project Phase I Project Description More information is available on the CRA’s Current Project List. The Streetscape project will include improvements to sidewalks, right of way, underground utility, and other related improvements in the historic downtown commercial core. The goal is to improve walkability of the downtown area by…

Volusia County is closer to a compromise with its cities on the thorny issue of Community Redevelopment Areas, or CRAs. CRAs have been a contentious topic of late, but needlessly so. When properly proposed and approved, the CRAs take new property-tax revenue that a blighted area generates and plow it back into improvements. The improvements…

Land Needed for Film Studio Location in Dade or Broward County A company is considering developing state-of-the art film studios in Miami Dade or Broward county. They are looking for a minimum of 25 acres of land to either buy or lease long term. The closer to Miami or Ft Lauderdale the better, but they…

Even Winter Park was hit by the Great Recession. Although it may not have been as bad off as some other parts of Central Florida, the city’s commercial strip along U.S. Highway 17-92 paid a price: Office space sat empty for years, an ice-cream shop gave way to a “we buy gold” store and the Borders bookstore…

SOUTH DAYTONA — A group of city managers from all over Volusia County sat around a police training-room table recently trying to salvage CRAs. It was Day 15 of their 60-day window to come up with a compromise to present to the county. They might be getting closer, but one thing is clear: The money’s…

CLEARWATER — A Latvian real estate developer has been buying up vacant storefronts in downtown Clearwater, and he’s making plans to fill them. Daniels Ikajevs, who lives in a penthouse in the Water’s Edge condominium tower overlooking Clearwater Harbor, recently bought the tower’s 10,000-square-foot ground-floor retail space for $875,000. That space has been empty for…

Boosters of Downtown Dade City Main Street portrayed the group’s demise last week as a case of mission accomplished. Certainly, this agency has much of which to be proud, but the end can be more accurately described as resource competition. Main Street and other non-profit groups find themselves competing for financial support in a still…

Ocala’s downtown square soon will be touched up with a Brick City flair. Kathy Crile, the city’s parks and recreation director, told City Council members during a presentation Tuesday that the downtown square looks “a little dated” and outlined plans to spend $265,000 to make changes to the city’s public centerpiece. Crile said $114,000 was…

New analysis finds it took only $19 million public dollars to generate approximately $371 million in private investment. A new study examining the effect of government Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) investment in several Florida municipalities has found that for every single dollar spent by a CRA on redevelopment, that same area benefited from twenty additional…

Lake Worth NSP is NDC Finalist LAKE WORTH CRA NSP-2 CONSORTIUM SELECTED AS FINALIST FOR NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL PROJECT AWARD LAKE WORTH, FL. — Late last week, the National Development Council (NDC) officially announced the semi-finalists for the NDC Academy 2013 Awards. The Lake Worth Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP-2) Consortium is one of six semi-finalists…