GLAMOUR!!!! GLITZ!!!! RAZZ MA TAZZ…AND ALL THAT JAZZ!!!!
That is what some people consider development or progress. The sizzle will give us the flair. Style will draw the crowds. Gimmicks will bring jobs and people flocking to our downtown. The substance and values of the place does not matter. Let’s be like Las Olas in Fort Lauderdale or Lincoln Road in Miami Beach. Let us transpose our city to have the look and feel of Clematis Street or become Delray. That will spell success for us some say. I am surprised someone hasn’t mentioned the noise and crowds of Bourbon Street, New Orleans for Stuart to emulate.
Some people (and for the most part not even residents of the city and in some cases not even Martin County) have big opinions on how we should look. How we should develop. Those are the people that are only looking to their bottom line for their businesses or real estate holdings. Commercial businesses are important but are only one piece of the puzzle for the health and wealth of a community. The citizens, residents and voters should be the deciding factor on what the soul of the city will be.
In Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, Sicinius asks the citizens: “What is a city but the people?” To which the crowd respond: “True, the people are the city.” I believe the people who live in the condos off Palm City Road and on East Ocean and in all our neighborhoods chose to live in Stuart not somewhere else because of what we represent. We have a real downtown not an “Entertainment District”. Our shops and restaurants are reflections of us. Are we Glamour or Glitz?
Let us do the hard work of revitalization where needed. Let us be the city where families of all ages want to buy homes and apartments and put down roots. Not occasionally come to have a good time and leave because the cacophony of noise is not where they want to live and raise their children. Let’s make sure that we incentivize homeowners to revitalize and expand their homes to increase our tax base. Though Martin County school board is in charge, we as citizens can embrace and volunteer to make Parker and Stuart Middle better so that families stay as their children become school age.
Stuart should be Stuart. We should capitalize on our “old Florida charm” and embrace our 4 story height limit to attract visitors. We need not resort to being pale copies of somewhere else. Hotels on bridges and seaplanes on our river or restaurants on roofs will not make us better or different than a hundred other places. Our “brand” is established let’s build on it not destroy it for the sake of the glib and the hype of the ridiculous.
Gossamer dreams of Eldorado or other such nonsense will only lead to the failure of our city. We do need a vital downtown. That is something we already have. I also believe you can’t make us something that we are not and succeed. We want to be Stuart not Delray or Clematis Street. We don’t want to be an “Entertainment District” with all that entails. That is a scenario for our demise because it will drive away most of the current patrons of our restaurants and downtown businesses.
Further on in the same scene in Coriolanus, Cominius states to the crowd:
“That is the way to lay the city flat;
To bring the roof to the foundation,
And bury all, which distinctly ranges,
In heaps and piles of ruin.”
To which Sicinius replies: “This deserves death”. I agree the idea of Stuart being Glamour, Glitz, Razz Ma Tazz and all that Jazz deserves the same. Once we as a city allow those things to occur we won’t be able to go back. I hope Stuartians as the Romans in Shakespeare’s play say the same. I don’t believe we want to become just another soulless purposeless dot on the Florida landscape so that maybe a few will make a little more to the detriment of the rest of us.