Clearwater discusses closing part of downtown street to sell to Church of Scientology during meeting
Published By admin with Comments 0
“They don’t have any obligation to buy the street, and we don’t have any obligation to sell it to them, but if they want to buy the street, the land, then I would hope that they would make some accommodations to us, some agreements on how the building is going to look,” Clearwater Mayor Bruce Rector said. “Because whatever they build there is going to affect the growth of downtown and other parts of the downtown area.”
The Clearwater City Council voted Monday night to approve the first reading on whether to close South Garden Avenue between Court Street and Franklin Street if city leaders agree to sell the strip of land to the Church of Scientology.
It means that it will come back around to the council for a second reading on April 3. The council said they wanted to hear and see more information from the church and also wants more public input.
Rector said he thinks Monday’s vote was premature.
“I’m not comfortable with that. I think we should wait until we have an agreement to, with them, to purchase,” Rector said.
Rector said the Church of Scientology indicated about a year ago they wanted the city to close the street to build an auditorium next to the land that the city owns.
Right now, the street generates more than $30,000 a year in public parking fees for the city.
“They don’t need to close the street for the auditorium, but if they want us to do that, then there’s got to be something in it for the city,” Rector said. “We just need to make sure that it’s fair to the citizens and the taxpayers, whatever that something is.”
“As we all know, they’ve purchased a lot of property downtown. So, for me, the appearance of the building that they want to build there is very important. It sits on Court Street, the gateway to our beaches,” Rector said. “I think that that’s some of the concern you’re hearing from the community, too. Is this just a small piece of land really in between their two properties, but how does this transaction, if we go forward with it, how does it affect the overall plan for growth for downtown Clearwater?”
Rector said he hadn’t seen a proposed agreement with an exact dollar amount for the property’s price.
Content retrieved from: https://www.fox13news.com/news/clearwater-vote-closing-part-downtown-street-sell-church-scientology.
