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By MICHAEL CANNINGPutting their minds together, they discuss good points and bad points in commercial development.
Seminole Heights merchants are really getting down to business.
A new group of neighborhood business owners has formed, the Business Guild of Seminole Heights, known as B'GoSH. It joins other groups with similar missions, the Seminole Heights Business Alliance and the Seminole Heights Business Advisory Committee.
The way B'GoSH acting president Sherry King sees it, there's room for another merchants association in Seminole Heights. B'GoSH held its second meeting Nov. 3 at the Coffee Bean Cafe on N Florida Avenue.
"When I moved to Seminole Heights, I did not detect a lot of cohesiveness," she said.
King moved her business, Sherry's Yesterdaze vintage clothing and antique shop, to Seminole Heights from South Tampa in February 2004. While meeting her new business neighbors and garnering support for a neighborhood attractions brochure, King realized the area's commercial element felt disorganized and underrepresented within city government.
After King distributed her brochure, "Antiques, Art, Shopping and Dining in Historic Seminole Heights," in summer 2004, fellow merchants asked her whether they should form a new neighborhood business alliance.
She agreed in December, though the group didn't hold its first meeting until last month.
B'GoSH is taking shape at a key moment in the neighborhood's history. Regentrification of the historic houses started in the late 1980s and continues unabated. Though Seminole Heights' commercial profile has lagged far behind, new shops, restaurants and art galleries have sprouted among the predominant car lots, pawnshops and motels.
Now that a Starbucks coffee shop is scheduled to open along Hillsborough Avenue tentatively in April, residents and merchants are buzzing about a new day for the neighborhood's commercial development.
But there's still work to be done. During last week's meeting, the 35 people in attendance discussed Seminole Heights' good points and bad points, commercially speaking. A unique neighborhood identity, historic architecture and a strong grapevine among business owners were mentioned as positives.
The negatives: unsightly businesses, lack of bank branches, and poor parking and pedestrian access. Randy Baron, president of the Old Seminole Heights Neighborhood Association, said the area has the perception as the "car lot capital of the city."
The points will help determine B'GoSH committees, to be formed at the next meeting scheduled for Jan. 12 at a location to be determined. The group also will create bylaws and elect officers.
City Council member Rose Ferlita, a longtime Seminole Heights merchant, offered words of encouragement to the new group.
"I've seen where we were and where we are now," she said. "The buzz downtown is Seminole Heights is tough. Don't mess with them. Nobody else comes down to (City Council) as strong as you do."
For more information about the group, call Sherry King at 231-2020.