'Downtown living, old-style'
By CURTIS KRUEGER
Published April 14, 2007
LARGO - City government has spent nearly $2.5-million buying up a block on West Bay Drive for what sounds like a dreamy plan:
Persuade a developer to build apartments and office space, and lure people to live and work downtown. As cafes and stores pop up to serve the new downtown residents, even more people will want to come live nearby.
But what makes anybody think folks will spend their money to live near a divided road that carries 35,000 vehicles a day, just down from a corner now home to a defunct Eckerd's drugstore and a vacant Sonic drive-in?
Look at it this way, says Michael Staffopoulos, the city's community development director: By living in this future development between Fifth and Sixth streets NW, you would be within walking distance - half a mile - of performances at the Largo Cultural Center, of Largo Central Park and of what is arguably the best library in Pinellas County.
You also would be a couple of blocks from a Publix grocery store and, quite possibly, closer to where you work.
"You could be living downtown there and take the kids to the park and the library; it's a pretty cool place, actually," Mayor Pat Gerard says.
"It's sort of downtown living, old-style. I think every city in the country is trying to do this."
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That's the vision, and the city already has committed a lot toward making it happen.
In addition to the $2.45-million it spent buying the block between Fifth and Sixth streets, it is negotiating to buy another .86 acres from Religious Community Services.
Plus, the city has properties of its own nearby that could be added to the mix.
Now city leaders are forging a path through county and state bureaucratic processes - not to mention their own - to get to the point where someone unrolls blueprints and starts pouring concrete.
That could take three years.
For city leaders in Largo and elsewhere, there are plenty of reasons to encourage downtown redevelopment: Having more residences and businesses downtown is good for economic development and for creating a sense of excitement in the center of the city.
It makes sense to revitalize businesses in the center of cities because - unlike in newly built suburbs - the sewers, power lines and roads already have been built. Besides, it's not as if it's easy to find vast tracts of undeveloped land for large new suburbs in Pinellas County anymore.
One person who believes in this kind of development for Largo is Scott Shimberg, who already has helped to make it happen.
Shimberg's Tampa company, Hyde Park Builders, developed West Bay Village, a $12-million project featuring townhomes larger than 2,000 square feet and selling for more than $200,000, as well as retail space that includes the Crisper's restaurant on West Bay Drive. He said the location is great, not only because of the nearby restaurants and amenities such as Largo Central Park, but also because it's not too far from Tampa or the beaches.
"People gravitate to urban centers because it's exciting. ... It's an active form of living," Shimberg said. He said he would be interested in taking a look at the new block when the city is ready to start talking to developers.
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When those discussions begin, the city probably will offer extra incentives to developers for the target block, Staffopoulos said. He's talking about an increase in the normal "density."
That means a developer would be allowed to build more apartment units and professional space than normally would be allowed on the one-block space. A complex could include up to 50 residential units and 40,000 to 60,000 square feet of office and professional space.
That would allow developers to build what Gerard calls "high-rises for Largo" - buildings six or eight stories high.
Allowing this extra density would bring more residents and workers into that block. It also could make individual apartment units more affordable, Shimberg said.
The city last month closed on a $1.8-million deal to buy five parcels on the block, which is bordered by West Bay Drive, Fifth and Sixth streets NW and First Avenue N. It previously spent $650,000 for other properties on the block.
The city is negotiating with Religious Community Services on a nearby property expected to cost $850,000.
And city officials continue to look at similar mixed-use developments elsewhere in Florida for inspiration and ideas. In January, commissioners and city staff went to Sarasota to study that city's downtown.
And on Friday, they went to Orlando.
Curtis Krueger can be reached at ckrueger@sptimes.com or 727 893-8232.