This was sent to my fellow committee members regarding City Hall after our last meeting on Feb 14, 2014:.
What this committee has been tasked with accomplishing is more than the fate of City Hall. It is actually to define the future of downtown and the essence of Stuart. Everyone from my fellow committee members to city staff, our elected commission and the general public sincerely want what is best for our home. It will not be our motivations that may make our individual conclusions differ. We are celebrating our 100th anniversary as a city. While the past is ever present, we must concern ourselves with our future direction.
Here is what we can all agree upon. First that access to the water and the keeping and enhancing of the park behind our current site for all our citizens is essential. Second, we want to maintain the architectural character and feel of our downtown area. This would limit the size and height of any new or remodeled structures for this site. The “Old Florida” small town charm is a nonnegotiable trait that should not be lost.
Since our last meeting, I have spoken with Jacque Lewis of the Martin County Hotel Association, Mike Braid, and Steve Vitalli . I have also spoken with a couple of other hotel people that I know as well as my own experience with the industry. If we keep in mind my above statement regarding our agreed upon traits, then I received the same answer from all, that a hotel is neither economically or physically possible on the city hall site. Perhaps there is someone who would want to do the project but it would be irresponsible to make such a recommendation without a bona-fide and thoroughly vetted developer-operator.
It is my belief that we are lacking several critical components in making a determination of this magnitude today. First we still do not know what FECI intends to do with the parking along their right away. Without a long term parking commitment (at an affordable price) anything decided would probably be sent back to the drawing boards. If we believe that we don’t have enough parking now and are looking to build a parking garage, how many more spaces would we need and where should we locate those spaces?
There is also a question as to whether we will eventually have an “All Aboard Florida” train station or stop. Does the parent company, which is essentially in the hospitality, residential and office development business, want to invest here. If so, can a mutually acceptable project for both them and a vast majority of Stuart residents be achievable. We also need to consider the best path of solidifying the great strides we have made in our core downtown while continuing the synergy between the core and Ocean, East Ocean, Colorado and East Stuart.
The other missing element in this exercise is how do we, as a community, fund moving city hall or even keeping it and doing any sort of rehabilitation. While it is nice for us to dream and pontificate about a future direction, it would be totally irresponsible of us to recommend a “shiny new city hall by the Saint Lucie” without taking into account the actuality of paying for that vision.
Our gem, which is the city, is too precious to allow development of each parcel in isolation. We should ask the Planning and Development Department to be allowed to do what their name implies. We should not be asking for one more consultant’s report or one more un-vetted pipe dream such as “Salt Life”.
The time needed is more than a few hours over two days to make this recommendation. All components of downtown development must be looked at in totality so that an organic future can be imagined, embraced, encouraged and realized by the people of our city. For the past thirty years, we have had exercise upon exercise regarding this. It is now time for us to allow a more “nuts and bolts” approach to how we achieve these goals.
This committee should continue this discussion gathering more facts and information. There should be ongoing workshops with the various city departments but especially Planning and Development, the City Manager and Budget Director to formulate our next steps. As a Sunshine Committee, all our meetings are open to the public and public comment should be encouraged. This should be looked at as a beginning and not an ending.
One of Shakespeare’s most fascinating works is the “The Tempest”. In it, he explores the concepts of illusion and reality. What “is” and “is not”. Prospero, one of the characters, metaphorically tries to explain that what a couple has just witnessed is not reality. The buildings and palaces and city are not real but merely the product of a well-staged entertainment — that of life itself.
“Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind.
We are such stuff, As dreams are made on;”
Stuart Main Street has been given and accepted a task. I believe we should continue the work.