Petition started to stop Bradenton officials from relocating Glazier Gates Park
BRADENTON -- A petition is circulating to stop the city from relocating the historic Glazier Gates Park from its current location in the 1000 block of Manatee Avenue East, north to border Riverside Drive along the Manatee River.
The relocation would make room for the first phase of the proposed 521-unit Villages at Riverwalk rental development.
The City Council on Wednesday will go through a first reading on whether to change the land-use map for the park from recreation open space to urban village. If approved during the second reading Sept. 23, it would open the door for the development team to submit an actual site plan.
To date, the project is moving through the necessary steps based on a conceptual plan that has left many residents with unanswered questions.
Kim YoungShepherd has posted the pe
tition on Change.org and said she has collected almost 500 signatures that she will present to the city council on Wednesday. The petition claims there are trees older than 200 years that are endangered of being bulldozed. Also, the petition states the development will kill an entire ecosystem that has existed in "the last pristine space left on Manatee Avenue" going back to the first Native Americans.
The park area also is the site of the first free black settlement in Florida, as well the first settlement south of Tampa.
"It's where Manatee County began," said YoungSheperd. "This isn't just downtown Bradenton, this is downtown Old Manatee. This is where it all started and this development is going to destroy our history."
Ed Vogler, attorney for the developers, disagrees, saying the development will only enhance the existing historical value of the area.
"The historical spring and other historical structures aren't even on our property," said Vogler. "The historical structures will be unaffected, and I'd say enhanced by new roadways, new landscaping and an energized neighborhood of about 1,000 new Bradenton residents that are going to visit those structures and downtown."
YoungSheperd isn't the only one concerned about preserving the historic and ecological value of the park, however. Nonprofits like Reflections of Manatee and the Florida Native Plant Society opposed the project at an August planning commission meeting, saying the city is disregarding the park's historical and ecological significance. About two dozen residents expressed the same concerns to the planning commission, which unanimously approved the amendment.
The city, on the other hand, sees the park's new location as part of the eventual expansion of Riverwalk to 12th Street East.
Jackie Atwood is one of two homeowners remaining as a holdout from the early 2000s, when the now-defunct Riveria Southshore development went bankrupt during the Great Recession.
Atwood said the Riverwalk claim is a "gimmick to push the project through." She has been concerned about the way the city has fast-tracked the project since November when the first mention of Villages At Riverwalk was hastily added to a city agenda. Action was taken despite a Florida attorney general's opinion that action taken on a significant item with less than 24 hours notice to the public is a potential Sunshine Law violation.
Atwood, YoungSheperd and others don't have a problem with developing the land. YoungSheperd said any new development should be a complement to Old Manatee's history.
"We have historic structures dating from the 1840s to the 1950s and any new development should mirror downtown Old Manatee," she said.
The Bradenton Land Group, consisting of the Atlanta-based Hatfield Development Group, purchased the Riveria Southshore property out of foreclosure earlier this year for $4 million.
The conceptual site plan for Villages at Riverwalk, calls for 252 units within two- and three-story buildings, 240 multi-story residential units and 10,248 square feet of commercial and retail space with an option to convert that space into additional residential if the retail concept fails to attract tenants within three years. The developers also were granted a four-story building in exchange for installing some type of public art on the property, a substantial change from the original conceptual plan.
Vogler represents the development team, which consists locally of NDC Construction and ZNS Engineering. Vogler was the legal representative on the former Riviera Southshore development and argued that Villages at Riverwalk "is less intense and more effective."
He said the bigger story for Bradenton is that a private developer is willing to invest $75 million into an area of the city that has been long neglected.
"If that significantly energizes that area, is that not also beneficial to every citizen of Bradenton? We talk about the chamber and the business leaders about redevelopment and expanding the tax base, and now we have a developer coming in and saying this is what we'd like to do," he said.
Mark Young, Herald urban affairs reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7041 or follow him on Twitter @urbanmark2014.
This story was originally published September 9, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Petition started to stop Bradenton officials from relocating Glazier Gates Park ."