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© St. Petersburg Times, published April 5, 2002
Downtown development back in plans
Clearwater doesn't have a new plan for downtown redevelopment since voters rejected a sweeping $300-million plan two years ago.
But the city is working on that.
Thursday, city commissioners agreed to spend $60,000 to begin designing downtown beautification projects, an expansion of Coachman Park and new signs to direct motorists to downtown.
Meanwhile, Assistant City Manager Ralph Stone has developed a list of projects that could improve downtown and has been put in charge of making them happen.
Stone's list of priorities includes creating another downtown parking garage, investigating how to recruit a multiplex theater and considering the feasibility of constructing a marina near the city's downtown waterfront bluff.
At the same time that Stone investigates such projects, city planners will be working to develop a new master plan for downtown's future over the next year, City Manager Bill Horne said.
Although Boca Raton-based consultant Charlie Siemon drafted a redevelopment plan for downtown's core a year ago, officials decided not to approve it.
Instead, they intend to revise and expand the plan to apply to a greater area of downtown, such as including ideas to redevelop the eastern entryway to downtown via Cleveland Street, Horne said.
Clearwater is surveying residents to determine what their priorities are, what they like about the city, and what they dislike.
The results of the $7,000 survey, the first in several years, will be discussed by commissioners in May when they hold "visioning" sessions to develop a consensus about their goals for the city.
After the visioning sessions, City Manager Bill Horne said that he will use the opinions of residents and commissioners to craft a new strategic plan for major projects that he wants the city to undertake on his watch.
The city began collecting input from residents last fall, when it hosted a summit of neighborhood leaders. But Clearwater officials decided to put the survey and visioning effort on hold until after the March elections.