Merchants hoping trail spurs profits

By LEON M. TUCKER

© St. Petersburg Times, published October 24, 2000

DUNEDIN -- Deborah Williams calls it her "yellow brick road to making money."

The 100-yard path being built off the Pinellas Trail doesn't lead to Oz -- and it's not even yellow.

But for Williams and other area merchants, it represents a way of bringing more potential business their way.

"It's going to make a huge difference to the businesses in the village and take a lot of the heat off Main Street with its parking problems," said Williams, who owns the Bohemian Pack Rat store in Douglas Village.

Williams, who says she does most of her business during weekends, expects a 25 percent increase in foot traffic once the walkway linking the trail to Broadway is open.

"That trail is going to get all those locals to come down here and see that we're not offices and townhouses," she said.

For about three months, city employees have been digging and hauling dusty white gravel in the area between Scotland Street and Main Street that merchants say no one wanted to visit.

Now the crew has begun the final phase of laying decorative red and gray bricks along the new alley and parking lot across from the Historical Society. The walkway is scheduled to open to pedestrians in about 60 days.

"The trail has been such an important part of the revitalization of Dunedin," said Bob Ironsmith, the city's economic development director. "The trail will be another front window for those shops. And between the parking and the trail, we'll get some people mingling and taking a look at downtown Dunedin when in the past nobody really paid any attention to it."

Ironsmith said the latest development downtown is a part of the city's comprehensive redevelopment plan. To fund it, the city used $350,000 in Community Development Block Grant money as well as $100,000 from Penny for Pinellas sales tax revenues.

The improvements to the redevelopment area include streetscaping along Broadway between Main and Scotland streets, the placement of overhead utilities underground, the purchase of property behind Douglas Village for the downtown parking lot as well as brick landscaping and decorative lighting.

"Early on, I don't know if the merchants could visualize what we were trying to do," Ironsmith said. "Now they seem to be embracing it more."

Kathy Carlson, co-owner of Kelly's on Main Street, said she is looking at possibly opening the back part of the restaurant to trail users and others who would use the connector and parking lot behind her restaurant. "If it wasn't for the improvement, we probable wouldn't ever think about doing something back there," Carlson said. "It wasn't accessible; dark and dingy. Now it's all brick, beautiful and landscaped. It's so much nicer."

Ironsmith said the city also has agreed to maintain the two-block connector in the redevelopment area. The cost to maintain the section, he added, will likely be about $1,200 a year, which will be taken from Dunedin's parks budget.

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