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Time to do right by Harborview Center

By Times editorial
Published April 27, 2007

Now that the March boat slip referendum is behind them, Clearwater City Council members are looking ahead to the next phase of improvements they want to make on the city's waterfront.

The city, and therefore its taxpayers, own four pieces of prime waterfront land that council members want to consider improving or changing: City Hall, the Harborview Center, Coachman Park, and the City Marina on Clearwater Beach.

The question before the council last week was, which should come first?

Council members talked and reached two broad conclusions: 1. The Harborview Center is at the top of their list, and 2. Whatever is done with the Harborview site, it cannot be divorced from Coachman Park.

When it comes to decisions, Clearwater officials have made some real clunkers in the last several decades, but one of the worst was deciding to create the Harborview Center.

None of the current City Council members or top administrators were on the job when a former city council decided to spend millions of dollars remaking a leaky old department store into a trade center dubbed the Harborview Center. It got that name because it occupies what is probably the most valuable property on the downtown waterfront: the high bluff at the corner of Cleveland Street and Osceola Avenue.

The city officials who were then in charge also locked the city into long-term leases with Stein Mart and Pickles Plus Deli, businesses located in the building.

The Harborview never succeeded as a trade center, but instead morphed into a venue for community meetings. Rather than being a self-supporting trade center, it is now a facility that costs the city hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to operate and maintain.

"Harborview was originally sold as being a cash cow. And all it's been is a white elephant," Clearwater Mayor Frank Hibbard said. "We won't make that mistake again."

But what should replace the Harborview? Hibbard advocates gathering a group of professionals - architects, builders, planners, engineers, real estate experts - to study the site and the market and make some suggestions. Council members seemed to agree with Hibbard's idea, though they expect some city residents will wonder why the council doesn't ask residents, first, what they would like to see built on the bluff.

It comes down to economic realities.

The city government doesn't have the money, especially in these times of budget cuts and possible state-mandated spending caps, to build what officials think is needed on the Harborview site: a project that will be a draw for downtown and spark other development in the downtown core.

That likely means the city will have to partner with a private entity, and it follows that the project therefore must be designed to be successful in the marketplace.

Yet because it is the bluff, and because it adjoins the great resource of Coachman Park, the Harborview site's future will be of great interest to residents, who will want to share their own ideas.

There is plenty of time for that. The Stein Mart lease does not expire until 2009, and the deli still has 13 years left on its lease, which the city plans to try to buy out. However, City Council members are smart to start their study of the site now. As the city has learned, quick decisions about how to use the city's prime waterfront property can lead to no good end.

[Last modified April 26, 2007, 23:35:36]