Gainesville city officials and residents gathered at City Hall Plaza on May 8 to celebrate the ribbon-cutting of the newly renovated space.
The redesigned plaza, city officials said, will provide a more functional community hub and can accommodate more than 2,000 people. The space also incorporates the rainbow bricks salvaged from the downtown crosswalks removed last year.
Their removal came after state officials ordered communities across Florida to take down or paint over rainbow crosswalks, including the crossing in Orlando that memorialized the 49 victims of the 2016 Pulse Nightclub massacre.
Gainesville officials pulled roughly 1,900 bricks from three downtown crosswalks after the Florida Department of Transportation threatened to cut the city’s transportation funding in August 2025. In a memo, the department warned that non-standard markings “can lead to distractions or misunderstandings can jeopardize safety.”
Instead of discarding the bricks, the city commission chose to honor the LGBTQ community by incorporating them into the plaza.
“It was deeply hurtful to many people in this community and to me when the state and federal government told us, ‘You can have money for your roads or you can keep your rainbow crosswalks’,” Mayor Ward said during the ceremony. “If you are here, we’re glad you’re here. We strive to be an equitable community.”
The crosswalks were originally installed on Sept. 5, 2019, with the help of local LGBTQ activist Terry Fleming, who was instrumental in founding the Pride Community Center of North Central Florida and helped raise $7,000 through the Center for their construction.
The city has planned additional improvements for the nearby Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Garden and the Sister Cities Monument Garden. Renovations to the MLK Jr. Memorial Garden are expected to be completed by January 2027. The existing monument to Dr. King and an ADA-accessible entrance will remain, and two new entrances will be added.
“The city of Gainesville and the people who live here have always been diverse,” Ward said. “And this City Hall Plaza, in many ways, gives us an opportunity to learn about and celebrate that diversity.”
This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Rainbow bricks find new home at renovated Gainesville City Hall Plaza
Reporting by Chelsea Long, Gainesville Sun / The Gainesville Sun
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