Citizens for the Revitalization of Temple Terrace
Latest News July 12, 2003
Latest News (July 12th, 2003):
On Wednesday, June 25th
City of Temple Terrace Community Redevelopment Director R. Matthew Shannon (Downtown
Revitalization Project Manager) resigned his position as our first CRA Director,
effective immediately. The City has
placed an ad to hire a new CRA Director with the knowledge and experience to manage the
Downtown Revitalization process.
Ideally, our new CRA Director would have experience with:
Both the public (political) and the private (entrepreneurial) sector
Planning, and implementation of New Urbanist projects of the highest quality
Professional real estate marketing, negotiation, and brokerage
Commercial property acquisition,
sales, and leasing
Construction and property management
Development, developers and
development teams
We anticipate there will be a new TTRA
Director Selection Committee to assist the City Manager in selecting our new TTRA Director
from the applicants.
On Monday, June 30th, the Town Planner Selection Committee met for the first time to begin the process of creating the short list of three Town Planners from the original list of fourteen. The City Manager is overseeing the selection committee. The Committee will meet again on Monday, July 28th to review the short list recommendations. Once the TTRA approves the short list, interviews, portfolio reviews and negotiations will commence for the three Town Planners.
Since the property appraisals have been received for Terrace Plaza and the Burger King parcel (see below under June 17th news), we hope the negotiation process proceeds without delay. We remain optimistic that we may yet avoid the costly, complex, and less-than-ideal “eminent domain” or “quick-take” scenario.
The property appraisals for Beacon Plaza, Regions Bank, and the
Chevron Station parcels have been more difficult to obtain, as the appraisers/inspectors
have not been able to access some of the properties.
We hope this problem can be solved quickly so the City can continue
the assemblage of the TTRA (Temple
Terrace Revitalization Authority) properties.
This assemblage must be accomplished before the selected Town Planner
conducts the Citizen Charette resulting in our Downtown Master Plan with design
guidelines, market analysis, traffic patterns and zoning codes such as “SmartCode”
(a proprietary New Urbanist product).
Lastly, the Strategic Teamwork and Redevelopment (STAR) commitee, the citizens advisory committee for the downtown revitalization, passed a resolution on May 19 recommending that the City request appraisals for the TTRA property south of Chicago Avenue to the Hillsborough River, as well as the Doral Oaks apartment complex.