Gainesville Sun - October 14, 2001

By JANINE YOUNG SIKES and TIM LOCKETTE
Sun staff writers

As it is now, gravelly, pitted parking lots make up the bulk of an area just west of Main Street between SW 1st Avenue and SW 2nd Avenue in downtown Gainesville.

During the day, hundreds of government employees queue up for spots. At night, it's hundreds of college-age partyers.

But in a few years, at least four floors of concrete and steel will rise on those blocks, forming Alachua County's new criminal courthouse and an adjacent shopping area and parking garage.

City officials believe the structures will prompt a wave of development -- shops, eateries, apartments, condominiums and perhaps even a new movie theater.

They have good reason to think so. Some new development is already in the planning stages. Much of the proposed development is next to SW 2nd Avenue -- a road often used as a shortcut for travelers avoiding the heavy traffic of University Avenue. As a result, SW 2nd Avenue could explode with activity.

"The city hopes to create a high-quality corridor that connects downtown and the university area that serves auto, transit, bikes and pedestrians," said Tom Saunders, the city's director of community development.

And some even hope the road will turn into one of the city's most recognizable and treasured streets.

"This street is a memorable, underloved corridor," Gainesville City Commissioner Warren Nielsen said.

Relocating houses
Alachua County's new criminal courthouse, planned for a six-block area on S. Main Street, is credited with jump-starting interest in the area.

The 118,000-square-foot building will be erected during the next two years. Last week, construction managers fenced the four southernmost blocks of the construction site in preparation for taking down and possibly relocating the historic homes and office buildings. The county decided to give the century-old homes away to anyone who would pay to move them.

"Of the seven wood-frame houses on-site, three of them are still candidates to be relocated," said Larry Ackley, the county's acting facilities manager. "Some of the houses were too big and too costly to move."

Those homes that are relocated will be moved in coming months in coordination with the construction manager, Perry-Parrish Inc. The company has recently established a site office on SW 4th Avenue in a dentist's former office.

A groundbreaking for the four-story courthouse -- expected to ease space constraints in the existing courthouse -- is scheduled for Nov. 6. Barring unforeseen delays, the anticipated completion date of the project is the fall of 2003.

New parking garage
A city-owned parking lot catty-cornered to the new courthouse site is to be converted into a four- or five-story parking garage fronted with shops and cafes.

Architectural designs are under way for the parking garage, which fronts SW 1st Avenue. A week ago, members of the design team presented preliminary drawings to city officials and interested parties.

"We don't want this to take away from the vibrant fabric of downtown," said Rolando Llanes, vice president of Corradino Group, the Miami-based planning firm hired by the city. "The building has to work at ground level in addition to housing 400 to 500 cars."

So far, the parking garage is getting less than rave reviews from members of the Downtown Redevelopment Advisory Board -- a group of business leaders and residents charged with guiding the development of downtown.

The garage is sheathed with a mostly brick exterior. Between each parking level, metal mesh screens cover the hollow spaces that allow the building to exhale toxic fumes released by vehicles. Lampposts ring the top of the building, giving it the appearance of a football stadium.

"I thought the idea was to build a building that doesn't look like a parking lot," DRAB member Kinnon Thomas said. "This looks like a parking lot."

City Commissioner Pegeen Hanrahan commented, "It's kind of moderny."

Nielsen said he objects to the lighting on the top floor that illuminates the fact that the building is indeed a parking garage. He also said he would like the architect to consider some wrought iron work in the exterior open space between the stairwells.

"It looks too utilitarian to me," Nielsen said.

The design isn't cast in stone. Changes are inevitable. Subsequent meetings among the designers and the public are planned later. Construction is scheduled to start in September of next year.

Mixed-use complex
Behind the Florida Theatre and at the dead-end of SW 1st Avenue at SW 2nd Street, downtown redeveloper Ken McGurn has designs to build a mixed-use complex four times as large as Union Street Station -- also a McGurn project.

The project is expected to comprise an 18-screen movie theater, upscale stores -- including those similar to Banana Republic and The Gap -- a parking garage, office space and 150 apartments. McGurn said he initially contemplated the plans in 1995 and resurrected them a year ago when the county decided on the SW 2nd Avenue site for the courthouse.

"The two new buildings will be a great shot in the arm to that area," said McGurn, who owns several blocks in the downtown area besides most of the property behind Florida Theatre.

"We would like to see the rest of the area continue to develop," McGurn said. "You have to have ideas out there so you can stimulate interest from other people."

Any construction, however, could be five or more years away.

"Right now, it's just a figment of my imagination," he said.

'Change the skyline'
At the intersection of SW 6th Street and SW 2nd Avenue, a South Florida developer plans to build a multi-story office and apartment building.

"This is going to be a massive, massive, massive development," said Marvin Schachter, the Boca Raton developer who plans to build a mixed-use complex on 6th Street, between SW 2nd Avenue and SW 5th Avenue, where a set of abandoned warehouses now stand.

Schachter's proposed development would include businesses at its ground level, with upper levels filled with apartments geared to students and young professionals. It also would include a multi-floor parking deck. Originally, the building was planned to be 10 stories tall, though Schachter has said he'd like to build it taller. Schachter said he'll present his final draft of the building's plan to neighborhood residents, but he refuses to talk about details of the plan until then.

But he will say one thing: The building is going to be big.

"This is going to change the skyline of the city," Schachter said. "The only direction for Gainesville to go is up."

Nielsen believes Schachter's building, if successful, could bring profound changes to the neighborhood around it. Because the site is in one of the city's redevelopment districts, taxes from the building would be plowed back into infrastructure improvements in the area.

"It's made to order for this particular location," Nielsen said. With its proximity to the university and to city bus routes, Nielsen said, the building will likely attract plenty of student tenants.

Redeveloping the road
At the same time, Gainesville's Community Redevelopment Agency is poised to build a new three-story building on the site of the burned out nightclub Village Traffic at SW 6th Avenue and University Avenue. The city of Gainesville also has applied for a $1.4 million federal grant to improve SW 2nd Avenue between downtown Gainesville and the University of Florida.

The project would consist of widening sidewalks, building landscaped medians, providing pedestrian-scale lighting, installing at least one roundabout and adding "intelligent" traffic signals that would give buses an automatic green light, said Teresa Scott, the city's director of public works.

"There would be some things to make the traffic flow better, too," she said.

The city also has plans to complete a bicycle and walking trail along the old CSX Railroad lines. Part of the 6th Street rail-trail crosses SW 2nd Avenue on its way south to the Depot Avenue area.

"I think we can turn this into a corridor that is walkable and bikeable, something the city can be proud of," Nielsen said.

Janine Young Sikes can be reached at 337-0327 or janine.sikes@gainesvillesun.com. Tim Lockette can be reached at 374-5088 or tim.lockette@gainesvillesun.com.

See October 14, 2001 issue of Gainesville Sun for original article.