A photo essay
When I was executive director of Bike Florida we had the privilege – for a brief few months anyway – to move our, um, world headquarters into the oddly shaped former shoe repair shop on a corner of the 100 block of North Main St.
It was fun working in the building’s cramped, eccentric spaces. But eventually the generous soul who provided us with our HQ digs, gave up the lease.
As far as I can tell, nobody’s used the building since.
Of late there’s been considerable community discussion about the old shoe shop, the former Wine and Cheese Gallery, and the other now derelict buildings lining that stretch of North Main.
Both have slowly crumbled into disrepair. Both literally around the corner from City Hall.
Some would like to see the buildings saved and preserved for their historic significance. But that’s unlikely to happen with those buildings are facing imminent demolition.
I stopped by the other day to walk around and take photos of these once vital business dwellings And as I contemplated the peeling pant, rusting metal roofs, scrawled graffiti, dead vegetation, barred doors and such…
…I found myself wondering…
How did we get to this point in the first place?
What responsibility, if any, does the City have to keep downtown buildings from slowly deteriorating into derelicts?
Alternatively, what is even the point of having building, health, safety and fire codes if they aren’t enforced?
So I put the question to Mayor Harvey Ward.
“I honestly don’t think anyone wants the reality of a special corps of building inspectors with a downtown schedule of regular inspections,” he replied. “It sounds good when we’re talking about the buildings in question in the rear view, but if it were implemented it would end in massive disinvestment downtown.”
Good points.
Still, imagine the sort of outraged questions and accusations that would invariably arise if one of those buildings burned to the ground – possibly with squatters trapped inside.
In any case, I do not mean here to dwell on the past.
But we have just invested considerable time, effort and money into the drafting of a Downtown Master Plan – the objective being to foster a more economically viable, safe and attractive downtown business, entertainment and government district in the coming years.
Listen, we all have friends and neighbors who tell us they avoid going downtown for fear of being confronted by crime, panhandlers, the homeless and the like.
Those of us who regularly enjoy downtown know those fears are vastly overstated.
But in many cases those shuttered, dilapidated buildings on North Main are the first things new visitors are likely to notice.
And who can blame them for saying: “See! I told you so!”
I agree that downtown remains in a somewhat fragile state, and that heavy-handed codes enforcement is likely to do more harm than good,
But turning a blind eye to blight is no solution either.
Clearly City officials need to be talking about what mix of carrot (grants, incentives, assistance) and stick (enforcement) can help sustain and foster the sort of healthy, thriving downtown that we all want to see.
“Perhaps a better way to approach it would be to supercharge the GCRA Business Improvement Grants program to offer a carrot, since the stick is not tenable,” Ward added.
Good starting point. Let’s strive to ensure that these buildings – these sad, neglected poor first impressions of downtown GNV – are the last ones to require the wrecking ball.
FreeGNV 