 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Clock tower clicks with commissioners
By KATHY SAUNDERS © St. Petersburg Times, published February 14, 2001 TREASURE ISLAND -- Downtown will get a facelift and a focal point by midsummer. City commissioners on Tuesday gave initial approval for a 50-foot clock tower to be built on the center median of 107th/Central Avenue, just east of Gulf Boulevard. The tower is expected to be about 13 square feet at its base with an open-air pavilion and trelliswork. The 6-foot clock will appear on the east and west faces of the tower, with the city seal on the north and south sides. The tower will be similar in design to the Treasure Island Beach Center and will incorporate the same colors: off-white and sage green. "The intent is for it to be a light, airy structure," said architect Enrique Woodroffe, who also designed the beach center. "We've tried to give an identification point, but we've designed it to be compatible with other vertical elements in the community," said City Manager Chuck Coward. "The clock tower is a chance to provide an element that ties two sides of the street together, and it becomes a location piece," Woodroffe said in his presentation Tuesday before the commission. "You can say, "Meet me at the clock tower.' " The estimated cost is $222,000. Coward said the city has the money in its Causeway Bridge fund to build the tower in June after the downtown road construction and beautification projects are complete. Groundbreaking on the road construction is scheduled for mid March. The center landscape will be widened, and both sides of the street will be realigned to bow around the median. That phase of the work, which may involve some traffic delays, is set for April 15 to May 30. Earlier in their meeting Tuesday, commissioners approved a $600,000 bid from Valley Crest contractors to complete the road work and beautification. The tower could be finished by the Fourth of July, Coward said. Sunset Beach resident Heidi Horak, who had opposed the tower last week, picked up a copy of the designs on Monday. "It isn't as bad as I thought," she said. "It's actually pretty nice." Business owners also got some tips from Woodroffe on Tuesday on how to improve their own shops to blend with downtown's new theme. "I'm just offering some simple elements with color," said Woodroffe, who was paid about $10,000 by the city to develop some ideas for the private business owners. He suggested that some buildings may want to add metal green roofs, that signs on the shops be coordinated, and that matching trelliswork and flower urns be placed throughout the business district. "You will have to make it pedestrian-friendly and you will have to have shade," Woodroffe said. "We have tried to avoid any major structural changes, which a lot of times can be expensive." Coward said he will schedule an evening meeting with the business owners in the next month. "It seems straightforward and achievable without a great price tag attached to it," Coward said of Woodroffe's plan. Residents Charlie Weisgerber and Peter Jon Volmar, a downtown architect, applauded the storefront designs. "It's time to get a theme and get on with it," Weisgerber said. As for the tower, Volmar couldn't "say enough about what I think that icon or that structure is going to do for a presence on Treasure Island. We need an icon and I think that's a darn good one. I urge you to go about doing this. Build it and let's be proud of it." But Horak continued her opposition Tuesday. "Admittedly, the clock tower icon is the best out of all the tower designs that I've seen so far," she said. "It looks the least like a guard tower than all the others I've seen." But "do people really want to know what time it is on Treasure Island? Isn't it that people are supposed to be on vacation here and they don't want to know what time it is?" Commissioner Mary Maloof said she loved the clock tower and especially the trelliswork, which she has incorporated into her new home on the Causeway. "To me, it represents stability and old-time, back-porch values," Maloof said. "When it's in full living color and in full bloom, I think it's going to look very tropical and very Treasure Island." Commissioners plan to discuss the clock tower again during their next workshop, scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall, 120 108th Ave. The workshop will be broadcast on Time-Warner cable Channel 15.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
From the Times South Pinellas desks |
