CLEARWATER – Figuratively wearing their Community Redevelopment Agency hats on Sept. 7, Clearwater City Council members unanimously approved the purchase of nearly an entire city block in the city’s crime-ridden East Gateway area.
“This property has presented an acquisition opportunity for the CRA at this time, since the property has recently been listed for sale and reductions in (the) asking price have made the acquisition feasible for redevelopment purposes,” according to a staff memo.
The property will be “land banked” until a suitable use for it can be found.
At 96,885 square feet, or 2.2 acres, the purchase comprises - with the exception of three private residences on Grove Street - the entire block bounded by Grove Street on the north, Cleveland Street on the south, North Betty Lane on the east and North Lincoln Avenue on the west. It includes the Economy Inn, the Jem Motel, the Viva Mexico restaurant, two duplexes on Grove Street and a single-family residence on the corner of Grove Street and North Betty Lane.
“The properties have become a major, continuing source of blight and inappropriate activity, which is materially affecting the CRA, city and East Gateway community’s efforts to stabilize and revitalize the East Gateway area,” the staff memo said. “The magnitude of these problems far exceeds other properties in the East Gateway area.”
The Economy Inn is especially well known to Clearwater police. Between Sept. 1, 2009 and Aug. 12, 2010, they received 421 calls for service and 129 reports from that motel.
Vice Mayor John Doran said that when the city buys the property, the prostitutes and drug dealers won’t change professions; they’ll just ply their illicit trades elsewhere in the city. Police Chief Tony Holloway said that his officers will be ready for them, no matter where they reappear.
In an Aug. 10 memo to Assistant City Manager Rod Irwin, Geri Campos Lopez, the city’s director of economic development and housing, said that buying the property from MNEK Inc. would “eradicate a focal point of criminal activity; reduce (the) spread of criminal activity into adjacent neighborhoods; remove (a) barrier to redevelopment in the CRA (area) and reduce(the) costs of municipal services that are currently directed at the Economy Inn.”
The $1,675,000 purchase will be financed with an eight-year, $1.9 million loan from the city’s Central Insurance Fund, which currently has unrestricted reserves of $19 million.
Interest-only payments will be made for the first two years and, after that, the payments will include principal and interest of approximately 3.5 percent. If the property is sold before 2018, the proceeds will be used to pay the loan off early.
Mayor Frank Hibbard said that the parcel in question has been a problem during his entire tenure as mayor and even before that, and the city should buy it while real estate prices are depressed.
In her memo to Irwin, Lopez noted that the three businesses on the property had been listed for sale at $2,250,000, without the residential components of the parcel.
Councilman Paul Gibson said that he would “reluctantly” join his colleagues in approving the purchase. But he said that it would probably be the last time he will approve such a purchase using borrowed money.
