Tampabay: Pinellas takes note of bulge in its middle

Pinellas takes note of bulge in its middle

Gateway's homes and burgeoning businesses prompt planners to talk of building a transit hub and an urban core.

By LISA GREENE, Times Staff Writer

When the Gateway Chamber of Commerce was founded in 1993, 20 people showed up for a chamber meeting at Shells restaurant -- on a good day.

But soon the chamber outgrew that space and moved to a banquet room at the Radisson Hotel and Convention Center. This month, after almost 70 people showed up for the meeting, chamber president John Morroni says it's again time for more room.

"More and more businesses are moving in," said Morroni, also a county commissioner. "It's one of the last bastions in Pinellas County for commercial growth."

To Buzz David, the county's director of economic development, this triangle of mid Pinellas roughly north of Gandy Boulevard and east of U.S. 19 is "Ground Zero, where all the action might occur in the future."

To St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker it's the city's "strongest base of growth."

To Steve Spratt, county administrator, it's a place with "just a lot of synergy."

All the interest in Gateway shows that Pinellas County leaders now recognize the local economy is about more than just tourism, said county planning director Brian Smith.

"There's been a recognition that the focus needs to be broader, to include office and industrial, and the opportunity there is more in the mid county," he said. "When you look at the future of the county, it's not in adding more residents, but adding more business."

The area is now home to the 438-acre Carillon Office Park, where Raymond James, Franklin Templeton and other corporate powerhouses dominate the entry to Pinellas County. Outside Carillon, Gateway's highways are lined with many of Pinellas' leading businesses, from Jabil Circuit to Home Shopping Network.

Just last year, some of St. Petersburg's largest construction projects were in the Gateway area, with a $26.4-million expansion at Raymond James and $23-million worth of new apartments in the Brighton Bay development. More than 23,000 people work there, comparable to downtown St. Petersburg and Clearwater, and the average annual wage is $43,585, higher than the county average of $31,126.

It's not only business that's looking at Gateway. The area is studded with public land -- highways, landfills, the St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport and the Pinellas County Jail. So many county projects now involve Gateway property that Spratt put together a staff task force to take a more comprehensive look.

Some of those plans could have a dramatic impact. They include plans, with the state Department of Transportation, to link the Bayside Bridge to Interstate 275 and make more improvements to 118th Avenue. The Gateway also is the prospective site where a state bullet train would enter the county, as well as the hub for a "transit center" if the county builds a light rail line.

Yet for all the shiny new development, Gateway is a study in contrasts.

The cranes building Raymond James' newest tower loom over Ulmerton Road. But across the street, the Riviera Deli is still homey enough that owner Joyce Adams sat crocheting a pink baby blanket on a recent morning. A few minutes down the road, a horse was being shod at the Sunshine Stables and a cat slept sprawled across a feed bag, surrounded by the smell of fresh hay.

It's testament to how quickly Gateway has changed. Even though its location now is central, a huge advantage for business location, not so long ago it was remote from the city centers of St. Petersburg and Clearwater.

David, the economic development director, remembers driving out to the area in a Jeep about 20 years ago, trying to show off a potential development site to visitors.

"We're showing them this woodsy area, and saying, 'This is a great place for future business," he said. "They said, 'What's here?' We said, 'opportunity.' "

Today, the woods David recalls driving through has turned into offices along Roosevelt Boulevard.

The rapid development means the area has boomed -- but it also has sprawled. Few people think of Gateway as a unified community.

"It's an enormously powerful business center, but it has no sense of itself," said Julio Maggi, vice president for commercial development for Echelon Development LLC, Carillon's developer.

Maggi has plans for Carillon to help develop that sense. Echelon now is building a "main street" for the park. It will have a grocery store, shops and a bank branch. Plans call for condominiums as well.

Carillon's town center has all the hallmarks of a trendy neighborhood development approach known as "new urbanism": a blend of uses, a space friendly to walkers, an anchor to an otherwise disconnected community.

Once the downtown is addded to what's already in Carillon, it'll be possible to move into an apartment, go to work, buy dinner, go to the doctor, leave the kids in child care and go work out -- all without leaving Carillon.

But will Carillon's downtown help provide a focus for all of Gateway? The massive park is already an area landmark.

Yet Maggi points to what he sees as the area's chief limitation: There are few homes, churches and schools -- the institutions that knit sprawl into community. Except for its many apartment complexes and the single-family homes in Feather Sound and Brighton Bay, most of Gateway is deserted at night.

"It's just roads and parking lots," Maggi said. "We're trying to give it a core, an urban core -- to give it a downtown."

Then there's the everyday problem for Gateway: traffic. Each morning and afternoon, the area's key advantage, its central location, becomes a curse. While thousands of people are trying to get to Gateway, thousands of others are trying just to get through it.

Each morning when Melissa L'Heureux drives to work at The Tides near Feather Sound, her commute from Clearwater takes 30 to 45 minutes, depending on traffic.

"The longest I wait is right here" on Ulmerton Road, she said, able to see her office tower but not reach it.

Larry Silver, spokesman for Raymond James, says the traffic is just "horrible." Going to work early, before rush hour, takes him 30 minutes. Going home can take more than 45.

"Granted, we've got traffic problems," he said. "To get some sort of better access from the Bayside Bridge to here will help tremendously."

Others are looking forward to traffic fixes as well.

"The traffic system is the main issue we need to address," Mayor Baker said. "Once we have a system in place that enables the through traffic to go, that will help."

For Maggi, rail is a key to a prosperous future -- not only for Gateway, but for the whole county. The right kind of rail line could transform the county, he said.

"That will be a catalyst for growth and change, as nothing that's ever been in Pinellas County before," he said.

And Gateway?

"Gateway is right in the middle of it all."

Meanwhile, Pinellas County officials plan other changes around Gateway. They want to extend the runway and rebuild the terminal at St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport. They also hope to redevelop the Airco Golf Course, possibly into an industrial or office park.

Farther south, county officials are talking about how to use the old Toytown landfill, possibly by turning it into a golf course or recreation complex.

"There may have been people who thought there wasn't much opportunity in that area, but that's changing," Spratt said. "Government can help support that development. That's why there's the need for good, orderly planning."