Schools

Corner of UF's bustle is gone

Condos were to replace a busy spot in Gainesville; now there are just weeds.

By SHANNON COLAVECCHIO-VAN SICKLER, Times Staff Writer
Published December 2, 2007

A chain-link fence lines the three-block section of a former shopping plaza at University Avenue and 13th Street. The area was leveled two years ago to make way for University Corners, a development of pricey condos, shops and restaurants.
	[Photo by the Gainesville Sun]

ADVERTISEMENT [Photo by the Gainesville Sun] Crumbling steps mark the remnants of a shop that used to reside at the shopping plaza at University Avenue and 13th Street in Gainesville.

GAINESVILLE - The most prominent street corner in this college town used to bustle with life. Now it's more befitting a dying city like Detroit.

Until a few years ago, University of Florida students flocked here to order the "Primo Beef" from Burrito Bros. and get cheap trims from Wild Hair. Earlier generations came en masse every semester to get their course readings from Goering's Book Store. More recently arrived Gators sipped skinny lattes inside the corner Starbucks.

Now the corner of University Avenue and 13th Street, plus two adjacent city blocks, is a fenced parcel covered in weeds and graffiti. All that remains of favorite haunts like Burrito Bros. are a few patches of brick floor.

The three city blocks were razed a few years ago to make way for University Corners, a proposed eight-story development of pricey condos, retail shops and restaurants that would cater largely to successful alumni who spend weekends here cheering on their beloved football team.

City commissioners approved the $206-million project with great enthusiasm in 2004, back when the market was hot and they needed a high-profile project to fuel redevelopment efforts in the campus area known affectionately as the "student ghetto."

But now the market is getting colder by the month, and a recent Florida Supreme Court ruling leaves in doubt the legality of $98-million in city tax incentives that developers were counting on. The project also faced delays because of legal skirmishes with some tenants of the now-demolished buildings.

So the parcel that was the campus area's trademark gateway has become an eyesore. And to many longtime Gators and area residents, the uncertain future of the property is a disheartening reminder of how the real estate market's steep rise and rapid fall can alter a place so rich in tradition and memories.

Project supporters, among them city commissioner and UF professor Jeanna Mastrodicasa, are optimistic University Corners will eventually be more than just an architect's rendering.

But those opposed to the project wonder which is worse: an upscale complex that seems to them more befitting tony Boca Raton, or a failed parcel covered in weeds.

"All over town, we're losing what makes Gainesville, Gainesville," says Burrito Bros. owner Janet Akerson.

She started the business with her husband, Randy, three decades ago in a tiny storefront off 13th Avenue. Now they serve their famous burritos and guacamole in a church courtyard down the street.

"It was a tiny little place, but it hummed, and it was totally jammed," Akerson said. "Now we're losing all that. We're losing the college town atmosphere."

Catering to students

From the moment classes began here for 102 men on Sept. 26, 1906, Gainesville's businesses and people catered to the university community.

That's especially true in the "ghetto" across from campus, where students share aging bungalows, duplexes and apartments within walking distance of UF's lecture halls and sporting venues.

They've long been the primary customers for the many businesses and eateries surrounding University Avenue and 13th Street. But what used to be a corridor filled largely with small mom and pop businesses has grown increasingly commercial and franchised, with the proposal for University Corners just the largest example.

A Chipotle and a Tijuana Flats opened right near the fiercely independent Burrito Bros. Goering's, the independent bookstore, moved out. Starbucks came in.

The area was slowly shifting from grunge to franchised glamor.

By 2005, when city commissioners gave developers the first of several tax incentives for University Corners, the state was riding high on a real estate boom and the city was eager to take advantage. And alumni-targeted condos like the ones planned for University Corners were being built in big college football towns around the nation.

Fast forward to today, and even supporters concede the project has stalled and might have to be downsized to move forward.

The Florida Supreme Court's recent ruling against tax incentives "might change the scope of the project," said John Thomas of Bosshardt Realty, which is selling the condos.

Still, he insisted something will come of the corner.

"That is the most prestigious site in North Central Florida," said Thomas, 59, a Gainesville native who started assembling land for the project in 2000. "A project will go there."

Thomas said 60 percent of the University Corners units are reserved. But that's down from 100 percent before the project stalled, according to real estate agent Henry Rabell, also of Bosshardt.

High-priced living

And local developers trying to unload their own condos before the market gets worse worry that University Corners' prices are just too high.

"I want it to succeed, but no way would I try to build something like that now," said Eric Wild, a 1999 UF graduate, who earned his Ph.D. in business management from UF two years ago. "Our project was only $20-million and it almost gobbled us up."

Wild is a partner in two completed condominium projects in the student ghetto, including Jackson Square, a $20-million venture that sits in the shadow of the University Corners site. He recently showed a first-floor model to prospective buyers.

His buyers so far are alumni, he said, many of whom plan for their kids to live in the condos when they attend UF. In the meantime, they'll use the condos as game-weekend lodging.

Wild's French Quarter-style condos are priced from $288,000 to $650,000, but he has yet to sell the priciest units. University Corners' units are supposed to sell for between $200,000 and more than $1.5-million.

"I'm just not sure about that price," Wild said. "It might be too high."

A few blocks away on University Avenue, a crane looms over construction crews working on the second floor of Stadium Club, an eight-story building that will feature 24 condominiums and ground-floor retail. The condos range from an 861-square-foot one-bedroom unit to two penthouses with more than 3,000 square feet of living space. The cheapest units are listed at $419,000, and the penthouses have a $2-million price tag.

Stadium Club's promotional materials boast that the condos are just 550 feet from the football stadium.

Thomas of Bosshardt Realty said not all of Stadium Club's units have sold, but the project is moving ahead as scheduled.

Developers want to finish construction before the final football game next season, Thomas said.

Old UF disappears for alums

Johnnie Ruth Smith, 74, was born and raised in Gainesville. She likes to tell people, in her rural central Florida accent, "I cut my teeth" in UF's football stadium, where her parents brought her to games as a child.

She attended UF for two years starting in 1951, and her husband and two sons are UF graduates.

She lives in Live Oak now but still has season tickets.

Current UF students are fairly indifferent to the condo projects built and the ones that have stalled.

"I really don't mind what they put up one way or the other," said Trinh Ton, 20, a junior studying microbiology.

But Smith worries about how her favorite college town is changing - the corner of University and 13th in particular.

"These are places the alumni want to go back to. I know people from South Florida who went straight to that corner for Burrito Bros. every time they came into town," she said.

"Why would they mess with our corner?"

Shannon Colavecchio-Van Sickler can be reached at svansickler@sptimes.com or 813 226-3403.

[Last modified December 1, 2007, 22:56:01]