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Shops to fill vacant Midtown property
By SHARON L. BOND, Neighborhood Times Business Editor ST. PETERSBURG -- Midtown is getting a new shopping area on 18th Avenue S between 16th and 17th streets. Ron Donaldson and his company, Construction Specialties Inc., are building a shopping center that will have five to six retailers, a police substation and an office for a bank or lender. Donaldson, president of the St. Petersburg Area Black Chamber of Commerce, said the project will be worth about $1-million and be called Three Oaks Commerce Center. It will be built on vacant land assembled from seven separate parcels. "I'm not going to put up some humdrum strip center," Donaldson said. "It will have architectural features." Plans haven't been drawn yet, so he does not have exact details on the appearance. Donaldson said extra effort was important in Midtown, a 5.5-square-mile area where most of the residents are African-American and many of them are poor. It has been targeted by the city for redevelopment and upgrading. "It shows that you are truly buying into the Midtown vision, that you are not only looking to open a business but trying to change the climate of the whole area." Donaldson, 34, said he has signed two tenants for Three Oaks: a dry cleaner and a Subway sandwich shop. "We just really believe the community will support its own," Donaldson said. "If the developer is sensitive to their needs, they will buy into it." Donaldson said he didn't want Three Oaks to end up like other developments in Midtown: "a place where you park and sit and hang out." He hopes to be able to write restrictions into leases, such as definite closing times, that would prevent loitering. But he said developing vacant land should help cut down on crime. The new center will not have a food store. Midtown has a number of small markets but only one chain grocery store. Mayor Rick Baker and Deputy Mayor Goliath J. Davis III have made getting another chain grocery one of their priorities. Donaldson has owned his company for six years and been in construction for 14 years, he said. About $2-million of the work done on the new Jordan Park was done by his company.
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From the Times South Pinellas desks Letters |
