A Times Editorial

Patience could have payoff for Oldsmar

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 22, 2000

When Oldsmar officials talk about "redeveloping" their downtown, they are using a misnomer. They should be talking about "developing" a downtown, because Oldsmar doesn't have a downtown to redevelop.

What it has is more of a government center on State Street, where City Hall, the public library and a fire station are clustered. State Street doesn't have the retail shops, service businesses and restaurants that people usually picture when they think of a downtown, and it hasn't had them since the boom of the 1920s went bust. Instead, the retail shops and restaurants are on busy Tampa Road, where traffic whizzes past the short, shady spur that is State Street.

Oldsmar officials weren't deterred by that when they went to work on a redevelopment plan for downtown, even though they would have to create their downtown vision from the ground up. They did a little streetscaping, formed a productive relationship with the Greater Oldsmar Chamber of Commerce and began schmoozing with people who could make something good happen on State Street.

Their efforts paid off when Randy Mears, a local developer with proven credentials, announced plans to build on State Street the $20-million Oldsmar Town Center, a 6-acre project with shops, a restaurant and a hotel. The hotel already is under construction.

Meanwhile, all of Oldsmar is getting new attention from developers and businesses -- attention inspired by the completed widening of Tampa Road, the opening of a multiscreen AMC theater on the west side of town and the plans for a Wal-Mart supercenter on Tampa Road.

With all these good things happening, why are Oldsmar officials so impatient?

They have begun talking about the city taking on a new role in downtown to spur faster development there. One of the proposals: The city would buy property along State Street, then try to find a developer to build something on it.

City officials should slow down the train.

Oldsmar doesn't have an old downtown that has fallen into decay, leading to rising crime and creating a drain on the community's resources. That is the sort of situation that might inspire a desperate move such as buying land, taking it off the tax rolls and then holding it indefinitely, hoping that someone would come along to take it off their hands.

Oldsmar, with a population of 10,000, doesn't have money to burn. Remember, this is the same town that has been unable to provide enough public parks to satisfy its residents.

And like most small cities, it lacks the expertise to analyze market trends and play the development game with acumen.

But there are less drastic and less expensive actions the city could take to inspire more interest in the State Street area.

It should improve its marketing efforts downtown, creating a colorful, professional-quality promotional package that it could take on the road to show would-be developers what State Street looks like and what the options are there.

It needs to increase the number of people involved in discussion and promotion of downtown. Clearwater right now is an example of the kind of energy that can be created when an entire community begins thinking and talking about its downtown. Oldsmar's recent creation of a task force of community leaders and residents to study more ways to spur downtown development was a step in the right direction.

While the community is studying and acting on those and other ideas, city officials should work on having more patience, too. The Oldsmar Town Center project may create a domino effect on State Street. One successful project is sometimes all it takes to get the ball rolling.

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