New project worries historically Black Tallevast community. ‘So many families have left.’
There was a time when Walter Schmid & Son Guernsey Dairy was the primary neighbor of Tallevast, a quiet, secluded Black community founded in the late 1800s by the children of former slaves and migrant workers.
But Tallevast is no longer so isolated. The historically Black neighborhood is barely hanging on, residents say, having endured “death by a thousand cuts,” as attorney Brett Paben put it.
Fast-growing Sarasota Bradenton International Airport is just to the southwest, and Manatee County has a new transit facility to the east, near a huge Amazon delivery center that opened in late 2021.
The latest cause for concern is “Project Woodworking,” the code name for a massive project planned for one of the largest remaining undeveloped parcels between Tallevast Road and University Parkway.
Developers have filed paperwork with Manatee County Government seeking construction plan approval for more than 1 million square feet of warehouse-distribution space on the former dairy land, just to the east of the railroad tracks that splits Tallevast.
Neighbors have no clue about what’s coming, and county officials say that information is protected under nondisclosure agreements per state statute.
The way the project has been handled is the latest example of the community being blind-sided, residents say.
“We understand that progress has to happen, but we’re right in the middle of it. We’re not happy about what’s going on,” said Laura Ward, president of FOCUS, a group created more than 20 years ago to protect the health, environment and quality of life of the Tallevast.
Communication breakdown
Tallevast residents opposed rezoning the parcel in a 2020 petition and said the change should have been part of a larger discussion about the future of the community.
“Tallevast residents were made aware of this project (the rezoning) for the first time less than a week before the proposed Planning Commission hearing by receiving a notice via our post office boxes, since none of the residents in Tallevast are allowed to receive mail at their homes via the U.S. Postal Service. This late notice was compounded by the fact that it was just before the Labor Day weekend, decreasing the time that we could engage with the county and the applicant,” the 2020 petition said.
“Further, the County is required to encourage neighborhood outreach by the applicant, and, in fact, the County could have required the applicant to conduct a neighborhood workshop,” the petition said.
The timing also was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, limiting residents’ ability to prepare in person and creating a “chilling impact” on their ability to participate in a public hearing, the petition said.
Caleb Grimes — a Bradenton attorney who represented the property buyer, Peak Development Partners of Tampa, during the rezoning — said in 2020 that property owners wanted to work with Tallevast residents and pledged landscaping, setbacks and buffers to reduce impacts.
Developers also acknowledged a contamination problem on the site, Grimes said in 2020.
“We are going in with our eyes open,” he said, pledging that the development would not worsen or spread the contamination.
Manatee County Commissioners approved rezoning of approximately 301.5 acres west of U.S. 301, north of University Parkway and south of Tallevast Road on Oct. 1, 2020, to take the property from its former agricultural use to light manufacturing uses.
The rezone changed 226 acres from suburban agricultural, and 56.1 acres from heavy manufacturing, to light manufacturing. Approximately 19.2 acres of the site already had light manufacturing zoning.
The rezone, at the request of Peak Development Partners, allowed the first phase of development to commence.
That first phase turned out to be a 321,244-square-foot Amazon distribution center on 55 acres along Tallevast Road. The Amazon facility opened in October 2021, near where a vine-and-rust-covered silo, a reminder of the site’s dairy history, once stood.
At the time of the rezoning, county commissioners knew that a Fortune 100 company was ready to locate there, but they did not know it would be Amazon. They also knew that rezone held the potential for job creation, and that the site had a controversial history.
Jeanne Zokovitch Paben, who represented Tallevast residents in the rezoning with Brett Paben, said the community has experienced a history of procedural injustices since its founding as a labor camp for turpentine manufacturing.
A plume of underground contamination
Tallevast residents banded together more than 20 years ago to create FOCUS after belatedly learning that industrial contamination had polluted the groundwater that supplied their drinking, cooking and bathing needs.
The former American Beryllium Co. plant at 1600 Tallevast Road had been leaking solvents and other contaminants for years. The pollution created an underground plume that spread from the American Beryllium plant underground and to nearby dairy property.
The plant first opened in 1961 as Visioneering Company Inc. and for more than three decades, under various owners and various names, made high-tech electronics gear.
Part of that process involved piping a stream of used process water to treatment and holding ponds on the east end of the five-acre property.
Lockheed Martin bought the plant in 1997 as part of a larger corporate acquisition and shut it down.
Two years later, Lockheed put the Tallevast site on the market, and after finding a buyer in 2000, agreed to test for pollution and clean up any that might be found.
Beryllium was discovered in the soil around the ponds, at nearly three times what the state considered acceptable. Petroleum was found at 50 times maximum levels.
Perhaps most worrisome were solvents found in an underground plume of contamination that spread 200 acres, the Bradenton Herald previously reported.
County and state officials knew about contamination on the site but did not immediately notify residents.
Not until 2003 were residents informed that there was a problem — after wells had been sunk to track pollution. The monitoring and cleanup of the plume continues to this day.
In 2008, Lockheed paid the motel bills for 244 Tallevast residents for several weeks, while buildings were removed from the former beryllium plant.
Returning to houses sitting atop a toxic spill was like a double tragedy, Wanda Washington, vice president of FOCUS, said in 2008.
“You live here fearing for your health, and then you go to a safe haven, and then you are thrown back again to this toxic dump,” Washington said.
In 2010, both sides confirmed a settlement had been reached in a five-year-old lawsuit brought by 270 Tallevast residents against Lockheed Martin. Neither side would comment on terms of the settlement.
The last of the Loral American Beryllium Plant was dismantled and removed in 2011.
Decontamination efforts continue today and there is no indication when it might be completed.
Four lanes coming to Tallevast Road
Another potential problem residents see is Tallevast Road itself, which the county eventually plans to four-lane.
“All of the houses along Tallevast Road would be taken out. It would mean those residents would have to be relocated,” Ward said. “If they do anything else with this road, we will lose the community completely.”
The irony is not lost on Tallevast residents that while their community is a coveted location for business, they are some of the last Manatee County residents to receive basic services such as phones and treated water. One third of Tallevast still lack sanitary sewer, although county funding has been approved to extend sewer to the rest of the community.
Tallevast residents remain understandably wary about changes in their neighborhood.
“They haven’t been able to live the lives they want because of fear,” Brett Paben said.
Wanda Washington says there is not one family in Tallevast that has not been touched by cancer.
“We have been completely surrounded by industry, and so many families have left and won’t come back,” Washington said.
SRQ Logistics Center
Although it has not been announced who the tenants of the proposed warehouse distribution facility might be, what is known is there will be up to 14.6 acres of wetland impacts and that over 30 acres of wetland mitigation area would be set aside.
The plan includes space for passenger vehicle parking for employees and tractor-trailer parking and loading spaces for semi-delivery trucks.
A sign posted near the property lists Peak Development Partners of Tampa and a Toronto-based commercial real estate company Avison Young, with a brief description of the planned SRQ Logistics Center.
Plans posted online for SRQ Logistics Center show several building options, including one for a 1,000,350-square-foot building and a 504,440-square-foot building on opposite sides of a planned spine road.
The spine road would be built down the center of the property so that the industrial park would have access to Tallevast Road, University Parkway and U.S. 301.
The Peak Development-Avison Young sign posted along 301 Boulevard East lists three options for potential clients: 125,000 to 1 million square feet of space available, build-to-suit and building(s) for lease.
Ward said she is hopeful that there will be a meeting with the developers to update residents on project details.
Added attorney Jeanne Zokovitch Paben, FOCUS members hope the meeting can determine ways to mitigate the impacts of development.
“I’m looking at the back of Amazon from my front door now,” Ward said. “What am I gonna look at from my side in a few months when this comes in?”
This story was originally published June 17, 2022 at 5:50 AM.
