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Debate rages over how to improve downtown Tarpon

Mark Schantz/SUNCOAST

Tarpon Springs Commissioner Robin Saegner asks City Manager Mark LeCouris what he thinks of a proposal from business owners to acquire property along Tarpon Avenue to provide additional parking.

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By Mark  Schantz | The Suncoast News

Published: July 4, 2009

TARPON SPRINGS - Property owners and shopkeepers along the downtown section of Tarpon Avenue agree something has to be done to help struggling business survive.

Debate rages, however, when the discussion turns to the best way to spark economic redevelopment along the main street of the historic district.

At Tuesday night's City Commission work session, John Tarapani and Vasile Faklis, longtime residents and property owners, told officials the city should resurrect a 10-year-old plan to provide additional downtown parking.

Tarapani, a former city commissioner who sits on the Planning and Zoning Board, said a lack of parking is discouraging restaurants and retail shops from opening along Tarpon Avenue in downtown.

A number of other merchants and property owners attended the work session to support the proposal that the city acquire a vacant lot in the middle of Tarpon Avenue and an adjacent building at 143 E. Tarpon Ave. The building is the home of Antiques Forever.

The merchants and property owners want the city to raze the building and turn it and the neighboring lot on the north side of Tarpon Avenue into a parking area. The new parking area would have about 10 spaces and would connect with an existing municipal lot to the north, on Orange Street at Safford Avenue.

Along with alleviating the parking problem, Faklis said, converting the area into parking might chase away troublesome vagrants who live in the alley between Tarpon Avenue and Orange Street.

When the city developed the Safford-Orange parking area in 1999 it passed on an attempt to buy the vacant lot on Tarpon Avenue, Mayor Beverley Billiris recalled. At that time the owners wanted to develop the vacant lot, she said.

Sue Thomas, president of the Tarpon Springs Chamber of Commerce, told commissioners that for the last year the chamber, the Garden Fairies gardening group and the owners of the property at 143 E. Tarpon Ave. have been working to beautify the parcel and design a multipurpose pocket park on the vacant property.

The multipurpose park would include moveable benches and landscaping so it can double as a green market and accommodate other public events, Thomas said. The group is also working with the city's Public Arts Committee to place a mural on the Antiques Forever wall, adjacent to the park, she said.

The park would be fenced at night and have motion-activated lighting to keep out homeless people, Thomas said.

Tarpon Avenue needs a park area like the one in downtown Dunedin, where visitors can sit and relax while others shop, Thomas said. The beautification efforts of the Garden Fairies give downtown more of a boost than 10 or so additional parking spaces, she said.

Jerry McLaughlin, the operator of Antiques Forever, said the family who owns the vacant property and the building housing his business has been working with the gardening group and chamber on the pocket park. He plans to move his antiques shop into another storefront along Tarpon Avenue and transform the Antiques Forever building into an ice cream and candy shop, McLaughlin said.

Some patrons of three local bars have been dumping litter on the empty downtown lot and using it as an outdoor toilet, according to McLaughlin.

He has been working with the chamber and gardening group on the park plan for about a year but the parking proposal is relatively new, City Manager Mark LeCouris said.

In the current economic climate it would be difficult to find money to buy the property, LeCouris cautioned commissioners. Furthermore, since the owners of the vacant lot and the building don't want to sell the city would have to undertake costly legal proceedings to acquire it, the city manager said.

In response to a question from Commissioner Peter Dalacos, Development Services Director Joseph Di Pasqua questioned whether the Florida Department of Transportation would allow a parking area entrance-exit in the middle of the two-lane downtown section of Tarpon Avenue.

Commissioners thanked Tarapani, Faklis and the other merchants and property owners for their suggestion on how to improve the downtown economy. Despite the warnings from Di Pasqua and LeCouris, commissioners said the parking area concept was interesting and asked the city manager to explore it.

Mark Schantz can be reached at 727-815-1075 or mschantz@suncoastnews.com.

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