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County explores master plan for downtown parcels, urges city partnership
Summary
Commissioners discussed using several county‑owned downtown parcels as a coordinated redevelopment area, favoring public ownership, a master‑developer approach, and mixed housing and small retail; staff were asked to prepare a comprehensive packet and to pursue a joint meeting with the city.
Alachua County commissioners spent the special meeting discussing a coordinated master plan for county‑owned parcels around Bowdiddley Plaza, City Hall and the Civil Courthouse and asked staff to compile existing studies and return with options.
Commissioner Prizia, who opened the item, said the county controls a contiguous core of downtown property and urged a strategic approach: "we own a lot of land downtown," she said, adding, "I feel pretty strongly that we should keep these in public ownership." Prizia proposed pursuing a master developer and using ground leases and contractual requirements to ensure public space, smaller retail spaces and affordable residential units for artists and workers.
Supporters said a master plan could combine public‑private incentives so developers can build while the county retains land control and specifies public benefits. "We can have restrictions in the contract, like, where we say we want a certain amount of public space," Prizia said, describing possible subsidized small‑space rentals paid in part with CRA dollars.
Commissioners also discussed related projects the city is pursuing. A participant reported that Lot 10 is slated to begin construction this year as a seven‑story, mixed‑use project with 104 residential units identified as workforce housing and ground‑floor commercial. Multiple commissioners urged folding earlier studies — including an Addison Young master‑plan report referenced in the meeting — into staff's packet and running market analysis before soliciting development proposals.
During public comment a neighborhood representative said a petition is circulating to rezone the creek corridor and adjacent blocks as permanent open space and warned that developers had encountered brownfield conditions near the creek that would require remediation and complicate daylighting the waterway.
The chair said she will meet with the mayor next week to confirm topics for an upcoming joint meeting (she mentioned "June 8, I think, or sixth, sixth or eighth" in the transcript) and commissioners agreed to make downtown and the Depot Park connection the focus of a later September joint session. Commissioners also asked staff to organize a special county meeting ahead of that joint session to refresh maps, building condition reports and CRA budgets. No formal land sale or authorization was taken at the meeting; the commission approved the meeting agenda at the start of the session (voice vote recorded as unanimous in the transcript; individual tallies not specified).
