Ali Baker loved the quietness offered at her Windmeadows apartment behind Butler Plaza for the last four years. But as the shopping center expansion continues and the woods by her apartment are cleared, she said both the construction and traffic are changing that.
The land behind the current shopping plaza is being expanded to create Butler North. Butler Enterprises President Deborah Butler said the roads and underground construction, including piping and electric, for the new complex should be completed next year.
Baker, a UF family, youth and community sciences graduate student, said she is against the expansion.
“I’m not a fan,” the 23-year-old said. “There’s already too many people driving around here.”
Butler North will add to the main Butler Plaza and Butler Plaza East, which is being redeveloped into Butler Town Center. Once finished, the site will span about 267 acres.
“People will no longer have to travel to Jacksonville, Orlando or Tampa,” Butler wrote in an email. “Butler Plaza, Butler North and the planned Butler Town Center will have everything you need.”
Infrastructure construction began Aug. 2, and building construction is scheduled for March, which will take a few years to complete. Butler said the expansion will bring 3,500 permanent jobs to the city and about 1,500 construction jobs.
“The impact is not like anything Gainesville has ever seen from a single developer,” she said.
But for Baker, the land clearance makes her complex feel exposed and unsafe. She said she’s seen many people walk onto her apartment’s property from the once wooded area and doesn’t look forward to being bordered by future businesses.
Butler North isn’t the only expansion in the works. Celebration Pointe is planned to open in 2016 at the northwest corner of Interstate 75 and Archer Road.
The center will include office, residential and retail space, as well as hotel services, said Tonya Creekmore, principal at Avison Young, the firm handling the management and leasing. So far, Bass Pro Shops and Hotel Indigo are the only businesses that Celebration Pointe has announced.
“If you look at markets similar to Gainesville and the amount of retail and office and residential that they have, Gainesville really has a void in those areas,” Creekmore said. “So we’re hopeful that we are actually delivering something to the community that is currently missing.”
Creekmore said Celebration Pointe is trying to cater to the entire community and expects students, residents and tourists traveling on I-75 to visit the center.
[A version of this story ran on page 5 on 9/24/2014 under the headline "Expansion of Butler Plaza to bring more jobs"]
Correction: This article previously stated that construction would be complete by next year. It is only the roads and underground construction that will be finished by about Oct. 2015. The buildings and stores will not be up and running for at least a few more years.
