Plans to expand a Gainesville fire station onto a downtown business complex’s parking lot have some owners worried customers will be driven away.
The city’s search for a place to rebuild the 50-year-old Gainesville Fire Rescue Station at 427 S. Main St. has finally rested on a location that will displace customer parking for several small businesses.
The city proposed to buy a parking lot and adjacent property to give the new fire station room to spread across the street.
It negotiated terms Thursday to lift the four-year lease on the property and move forward with construction, said Christopher Fillie, developer for the neighboring strip that houses the Citizens Co-op, Civic Media Center and other small businesses.
The businesses share a complex and courtyard in the 400 block of South Main Street as well as the coveted parking lot across the street on Southeast Fifth Avenue — an area already notorious for scarce parking.
Sitting on an L-shaped, three-fourths-acre parcel that wraps around the Citizens Co-op strip, the fire station feels the squeeze, too. It needs more room to accommodate modernized fire trucks and other equipment, said Gainesville Fire Chief Gene Prince.
But public safety is not the only issue at stake.
Emily Sparr, a Civic Media Center co-coordinator, said she was concerned with customers lacking a place to park during the fire station construction, which she said could lead her business to fold.
“The fire station is on the other side of our property already and is a great, great neighbor,” she said. “It’s just, we’re really worried about parking and keeping our businesses open.”
Prince said the planned expansion is a response to the growth connected to the Innovation Square district, which is projected to grow 5.5 million square feet in the next 10 to 15 years.
Many of the planned buildings are high rises, he said, which require larger trucks and different types of fire-fighting equipment the South Main Street station can’t facilitate.
“We really have to look at the service level we’re going to have to provide in the downtown area as we move forward,” Prince said.
Gretchen McIntyre, general manager of Citizens Co-op grocery store, said she met with representatives from the city and other development organizations Tuesday to solidify a compromise.
McIntyre said as part of the development terms, fire station construction is on hold until October 2014. The city will then demolish two buildings on the block and begin building the new fire station. It also agreed to accommodate parking of the businesses during construction, she said.
“If the city and the fire station sticks to its promises,” she said, “it will work out well for everybody.”
According to city development plans, a new fire station will sit on the parking lot shared by a downtown business complex on the 400 block of South Main Street.
