CLEARWATER – When the city of Clearwater bought the historic Capitol Theatre and the adjacent Pat Lokey Building on Cleveland Street, it hired the Ruth Eckerd Hall organization to renovate and run the complex.
REH’s plans called for expanding the theatre into the alley behind it.
The problem was that the city didn’t own the alley; Pinellas County did. On Oct. 4, the Clearwater City Council unanimously approved an agreement with the county that will solve that problem.
In a complex process of land swaps and easements, none wider than 28 feet, Clearwater will get the space it needs; the city, Knology and Progress Energy will get easements across the county’s 28-foot alley; and the city will pay the cost of combining two county-owned parking lots into one.
“From time to time, the modified county parking lot may be disturbed due to future work on underground utilities in the vacated 28-foot alley,” according to a Clearwater staff memo. “In such cases, if parking spaces are unavailable to the county due to construction, the city will provide for the number of displaced parking spaces in the City Hall parking lot located at 112 Osceola Ave. at no cost to the county.”
In addition, the city will issue parking permits that will allow 10 county employees to park in the city-owned Lot 17 at the southeast corner of Court Street and South Fort Harrison Avenue.
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