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Lions Club wants its home a historic site

Members are concerned with possible future widening of Limona Road and think historic designation would be prudent.

By ANDREW MEACHAM
Published January 6, 2006

BRANDON - Members of the Brandon Lions Club will seek to have their 85-year-old meeting house declared a historic site, after all.

The single-story wood building at 610 Limona Road holds a place on the county's historic resources inventory, a places-of-interest list for historic sites in unincorporated Hillsborough.

Each year, owners of properties that have made the list can apply for historic landmark designation, making them eligible for government help when they improve the properties.

After visiting the building in 2003, the county's Planning and Growth Management Department invited Lions Club board members to seek designation for the property, which was built in 1920. The frame structure boasts the original wood floors and wall paneling, Lions Club president Joseph Desmarais said.

The Limona Improvement Association, for whom the house was built, died out in the early 1950s, Desmarais said, and the Lions Club took over in 1954.

Parvis Moosavi, a senior county planner, met with Lions board members in 2003 and 2004 to invite them to apply for county historic designation.

The club was slow to take him up on the offer. Some members asked whether the tag would restrict them from doing what they wanted with the building.

"The problem was, they didn't know if we could do any changes after we got the historic designation," said Desmarais, 66.

The club took care of a couple of needed improvements such as painting and priming the wood surfaces and installing a handicapped ramp.

Now that the club has asked to be considered for historic designation, a series of meetings and hearings with a review board will follow, ending with a trip before county commissioners. They will determine whether the building deserves to be included with the 21 historical landmarks in unincorporated Hillsborough.

Moosavi said that historic review staffers who have seen the Lions Club building have no doubt that it should be considered for landmark status. The club would then be eligible for grants for improvements to the structure, provided it follows guidelines meant to preserve historic character.

Club members have another reason for giving in to historic review: a widening of two-lane Limona Road. Though county officials have not come knocking with any news, Lions Club members think such a road widening is inevitable, Desmarais said.

An additional lane would put Limona Road "at our doorstep," he said. Members have wondered whether road improvements could spell the end of the building that has served them well for twice-monthly meetings, Christmas parties and other activities.

But with a county historic designation, Desmarais said, "we might have more clout."

[Last modified January 5, 2006, 08:51:07]