Northpinellas: Bus station proposal again hits the skids

CLEARWATER -- The city's development review manager testified last week that it would be a mistake to allow a big downtown bus terminal to be built on a vacant lot surrounded by repair businesses and office buildings. Dressed in black dress suit, with trendy, oval glasses perched on her nose, Lisa Fierce told members of the Community Development Board that the proposed 3-acre bus station on Laura Street wouldn't be compatible with plans for proposed upscale townhomes in the area.

"Staff is concerned about the effects of noise and air pollution," Fierce said. "And staff is concerned about the site plan itself, as it appears to establish awkward and conflicting circulation for the buses.

"It will discourage the appropriate redevelopment and have a negative impact on the redevelopment of the area," she said.

Fierce added one more point. She told members of the board that reviews site plans for major projects that from 1997 to 1999 the PSTA's current downtown bus station off Park Street and Garden Avenue was a magnet for crime.

There were 292 calls for city police on average yearly, for problems including public drunkeness, theft, battery and domestic violence, Fierce testified. She predicted the problems would follow the bus station wherever it goes. For some PSTA officials, last week's meeting was the worst experience yet in a four-year struggle with the city over building a new, larger terminal downtown.

"It really is disturbing to see the city pull out crime statistics to imply that people who ride a bus are more apt to commit a crime and not fit into the social fabric of downtown," said County Commissioner Calvin Harris, who heads the PSTA's board. "I would hope that whatever happens with this would be based on something solid, and not these kinds of biases."

Harris thinks that petty crimes that occur at the city's bus station reflect homelessness and crime rates throughout downtown. To illustrate that, the PSTA compiled a report showing that Clearwater's downtown library has roughly the same frequency of police calls as the bus station.

Nevertheless, the city's Community Development Board last week denied the PSTA's request to build the new terminal downtown.

Now the PSTA can appeal the decision to the City Commission and to a state hearing officer. Or perhaps, Harris said, the PSTA could scrap plans to improve bus services downtown and concentrate on other cities that are more concerned about alternative transportation.

City officials contend they want to mend the rift with the PSTA, which was four years in the making.

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Since Clearwater's downtown bus station was dedicated in 1983, the PSTA has outgrown it. The 14 bus routes that converge downtown have changed from running every hour to every 20 or 30 minutes. Mornings and afternoons, five buses now park on streets around the station, whose eight bus bays are occupied.

PSTA Executive Director Roger Sweeney said his agency began planning to rebuild the station four years ago. In addition to more bus bays, PSTA officials wanted a more attractive, modern-looking station than the bare-bones structure.

At first, Sweeney said, PSTA explored buying a former car dealership on Cleveland Street. But Clearwater officials steered PSTA away, since they had other ideas for redevelopment there, namely a lake and townhomes.

In 1997, the city, Pinellas County and the PSTA agreed to expand the PSTA's existing site. Pinellas County promised to donate an adjacent parking lot so the terminal's size could be doubled. Above the new terminal would be a county and city parking garage, financed by the PSTA and the city of Clearwater.

The PSTA won a $5-million federal grant for the project. But then the Clearwater City Commission decided to back out of the deal in 1999, after receiving a request from the PSTA to commit to pay up to $3.9-million for the city's share. The deal died.

In late 1999, PSTA officials announced they would put a new downtown terminal elsewhere. PSTA officials recall that Mike Roberto, city manager at the time, pointed out several potential alternative sites for a new terminal, including the now-disputed site at Laura Street and N Greenwood Avenue.

But after the PSTA submitted plans for the terminal there early this year, city staff members decided the project would hurt economic development efforts. They again tried to persuade PSTA to pick yet another site, according to documents and interviews.

Zimmit recalls that Roberto told him and Sweeney at one meeting that Roberto knew of a third potential site for the terminal. Zimmit says the city manager promised he would call Sweeney back and disclose it.

"The last time I talked to Roger (Sweeney)," Zimmit said, "he had never heard back about any other sites."

County Commissioner Harris says the PSTA has not found other appropriate, affordable sites downtown.

"Our first plan was a good plan," Harris said. "Then the city scratched that and said look somewhere else. Now the city's saying we didn't mean that, stay where you are."

But Ralph Stone, the city's planning director, and City Commissioner Bob Clark, who owns property near the proposed site, suggest the disagreements are not the city's fault alone.

Said Clark: "Our staff really wants to work with them. Had PSTA worked with our staff, we wouldn't be where we are now, with PSTA's terminal being delayed."

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The years of discussions came to a head at last week's three-hour Community Development Board hearing on the PSTA's new terminal proposal.

After city staff members explained their opposition, stressing the need for downtown residential development in the area, nearby property owners protested the terminal being moved to their backyard. Among those opposed was Clark, whose printing company is across Grove Street from the proposed terminal site.

Clark said he has recused himself from recent discussions about the terminal on the City Commission and the PSTA's board, on which he sits. He wants to avoid a conflict of interest.

James Thornton, another nearby resident, was less bashful about his opinion.

"The noise, diesel fumes and transient people associated with that operation are somewhat acceptable in your business district," Thornton wrote in a complaint, "but they would have a very negative impact on my neighborhood -- and the property value."

Louise Cournoyer, who wants to develop an 18-unit luxury townhome project that would be across Booth Avenue from the bus terminal, said one potential buyer has already canceled a contract. The project's advertised "urban living in the new millennium" does not envision a bus station nearby, she said.

The owners of an office building, a private school, a family counseling center and a nearby Presbyterian church also opposed the station.

City staff members suggested at the meeting that the PSTA doesn't even need a station and could allow buses to connect at stops throughout downtown. Or perhaps, planners suggested, the PSTA could locate its station in an industrial park in the city's center.

The PSTA's attorney, Alan Zimmit, disagreed with each point.

The bus terminal would be compatible with the area, Zimmit said. He pointed to a map showing land around the proposed station is mostly commercial: offices, a television repair company and an auto body shop.

Zimmit reminded city officials of how they allowed a Walgreens drugstore and storage facility to be built nearby last year -- at the request of developer Lee Arnold -- despite plans to lure other kinds of redevelopment to the area.

An architect for the PSTA described how trees would be planted to buffer nearby properties from noise and fumes. And finally, Zimmit read from city policies stressing the need for public transit downtown.

The PSTA lost.

Now the PSTA will have to decide whether to challenge the decision or focus on improving its smaller existing station, as some city officials prefer.

Bus riders Friday afternoon were completely unaware of the debate.

Idling buses rumbled around Luz Pizarro, a 24-year-old woman expecting a child who was waiting to catch her ride to her evening job at the front desk of a beach hotel. Nearby sat Magdalena Mijares, 53, who was waiting for her bus home after working at Diamond Cleaners.

"For people who don't have cars, this is the most convenient thing," Pizarro said as the doors of her bus screeched open.

Should the PSTA try to build a better downtown terminal? "Definitely."

- Times files were used in this report.