City to finalize parameters for old library redevelopment
Commissioners are set to approve requirements for interested developers at Wednesday’s meeting
By Beth Kassab
Residential units combined with a home for arts and culture nonprofits are likely to take over the old city-owned Winter Park Library building based on a list of standards for redevelopment of the site up for consideration by the City Commission this week.
If approved, the Request for Proposal would be the second attempt in about a year by the city to solicit ideas for the building on New England Avenue that became vacant when the new Library and Events Center opened about two years ago.
Commissioners have expressed a desire to reuse the old building, but are also open to razing it if the right concept comes along.
Requirements in the draft RFP include: a maximum of four stories; preferred C-3 zoning, excluding restaurants and food halls; no residential units on the first floor; preservation of an oak tree on the property; only on-site parking; preference to arts, culture and nonprofit organizations and providing space for a traffic roundabout if one becomes needed as S.R. 426 undergoes safety changes.
The draft specifies that proposals will be scored on a variety of factors including financial benefit to the city through a “strong lease payment,” noting the city does not intend to contribute dollars to construction. The amount of community support built into each proposal as well as those submitted by businesses or organizations with a valid city business certificate and physical address in the city for at least one year can help provide proposals an edge, based on the draft scoring matrix.
At least six nonprofits, including the Winter Park Playhouse, the History Museum and the Sidewalk Art Festival, have already expressed an interest in securing space in the building.
Earlier this month, commissioners rejected two offers of land swaps for the building, opting to keep the building as a public asset in keeping with a sentiment strongly expressed by residents at public meetings.
-
By: Beth Kassab
No biography available at this time
-
I hope that it remains a benefit to the community. Arts, history, playhouse, museum, community meeting rooms or similar functioning assets would be good. I even saw some character on the WPV Facebook site recommended an indoor pickle ball courts with a snack bar. No need to sell it for residential use as that provides no benefit to the community.
At the time when the third floor was added, I was on the Board, maybe President, can’t remember. However, I specifically remember being told that the foundation could only allow for a third floor, not a fourth. May have to check old library board meeting minutes.
This decision or discussion is the difference between a community driven Commission and a special interest controlled government.
All sounds thoughtful.
This is pretty funny. Ineptitude is promoted as “consideration”. How about make it City Hall and sell the city hall land to a retail/office/residential developer? People on the Avenue, shoppers, office workers, residents. Oh wait! That was a Steve Leary idea/task force. This commission would rather chew their own foot off than use Leary common sense.
https://cityofwinterpark.org/docs/government/projects/library-events-center/old-library-site-reuse-task-force-recommendations-finding-2019-09.pdf
Your canonization of Leary is misguided. Selling to a developer only makes the developer rich. The citizens do not participate in that enrichment beyond the one-times sales price and a finite number of dollars in tax money. Land is land, Pitt Warner. It only increases in value because it is not fungible. Keeping the land enriches citizens. This enrichment continues, and grows, so long as the land is retained. The old library land is at a gateway to the CBD. Leary was adept at selling residents’ land assets rather than at enriching citizens. Prime example? The bowling alley’s forever lost 1.1 acres on W Fairbanks. Now it’s tonning money for someone else while parking and stormwater needs at the new library and MLK Park will require expensive solutions.
The old bowling alley should have been stormwater retention? Who knew?
And you may want re-read the article. “Residential units combined with a home for arts and culture nonprofits are likely to take over the old city-owned Winter Park Library”…somebody is going to make money. Why not the taxpayers of WP?
Pitt Warner: Pay attention. The commission isn’t selling the old library. As for bowling alley- storm water and PARKING are both critical needs at MLK/Library. Leary failed to deliver on the promise of the “related parking structure” for which residents are still paying.
There was for many years an old school house located across the street from City Hall on Park Avenue.
Then sometime around 1990 Rollins redeveloped it into the commercial retail and office space and parking garage that it is today.
The school house was a charming historic building and in hindsight it never should have been torn down.
City Hall and the Residents’ Library Building down the street from it are examples of buildings that should stay put.
A developer can put their shoe store or donut shop residential mixed use project anywhere, but historic buildings like the ones being discussed once they are gone they are gone forever.
If the City is going to redevelop a library property it seems they should really consider bulldozing the Library and Events Center in MLK Park.
That place is a disaster.
I don’t know how it ever got approved in the first place.
Hello? Rollins owned the “historic schoolhouse” and it was outdated and a waste of space. The surface parking lot was OK, but a sale made financial sense to them and the parking was expanded to 4 floors. Seems pretty smart to me. People who don’t own a property always want someone else to preserve it.
The overwhelming sentiment at the public hearing I attended and at the earlier task force I served on was that the property be preserved for a public use not just public asset. A park with or without pickleball would be a wonderful entrance to downtown Winter Park. It wasn’t the building we cared about, it was the real estate for green space.
Unfortunately, “overwhelming public sentiment” has never been a factor in the decisions of our Commission. Nor has common sense.
Certainly agree, Marjorie. To add additional comments from that neighborhood listening session: “Don’t put a vanilla project on that site. Make it a unique use. One with a public purpose which we can all be proud of”. I would add: make it a legacy project – for generations to come. A shaded meeting place for community ad hoc gatherings, a place to sit down on your way to/from downtown, a pet-friendly enviro, or alternatively—-continuation of the walled Fairbanks canyon made by the Alfond extension on one side and the Rollins parking garage? What’s it gonna be Winter Park?
CJ Williams, We all must take up yodeling. Rollins has created the sort of stucco canyon Winter Parkers never thought we would see in the village. Scary to hear that at least one commissioner wants to build FOUR stories of affordable housing units on the former library site.