FORT PIERCE — A new school may soon be coming to the downtown area, after the leaders behind the planned Legacy Future Scholars Academy received unanimous approval from the City Commission at its June 1 meeting for a conditional use to use the former retail building at 510 Orange Ave as a school.
The approval came despite city staff recommendations that the conditional use application be denied.
The schools plans to spend about $1 million on improvements to the existing building — a former W.T. Grant variety store that has sat vacant for about 30 years — according to documents submitted to the city.
Under the plans submitted to the city, Legacy Future Scholars Academy would have no more than 200 students in grades pre-kindergarten to eighth. The first floor of the building would house eight classrooms, a reception area, an administrative office, a nurse office, storage rooms, a kitchen, a teacher lounge, a student cafeteria, an indoor gym and playground, adult restrooms and boys and girls restrooms, according to a presentation by city staff. The second floor would be used primarily for storage, with some additional restrooms, according to the presentation.
Fitting its location in the city’s Peacock Arts District, and matching the wild peacocks that roam the streets nearby, the school’s mascot would be the Peacocks, according to the staff presentation.
Staff’s recommendation of denial stemmed from two conditions added by the city’s Planning and Zoning Board that staff determined the school had not met.
The school has agreements with the owner of the adjacent building, 500 Orange Ave., and with First United Methodist Church, located at 515 Ave. A, to share those properties’ parking lots, which will primarily be needed during drop-off and pick-up times. The building at 510 Orange Ave. only has 18 parking spots of its own. The agreement also includes sharing the church’s playground.
Planning and Zoning added a condition that the school needed to clarify certain aspects of those property-sharing agreements. Another condition was added for the school to develop a backup plan if those property-sharing agreements are ever terminated.
“What happens if that agreement with the adjacent land owner, property owner, goes away? What are your plans?” City Planning Director Kevin Freeman asked rhetorically.
Those two conditions were in addition to six that the school had already accepted. Freeman said staff had determined that the school had not complied with the two conditions, but commissioners disagreed. The school provided a backup plan that included using buses and an addendum that clarified the property sharing agreement, Commissioner Curtis Johnson said.
“Items seven and eight, it came from the planning board that these were not met, but I think I’ve seen something tonight that says that they have been met. There is a plan B, and then there is this agreement that we all saw that was signed,” Johnson said.
Commissioner Michael Broderick said the building, like many in the area, are “functionally obsolescent,” meaning they do not fit the modern code for the use they originally had. This building, for example, does not have enough parking to return to a retail use.
“You couldn’t build this building today with that amount of parking, etc. So, that building is functionally obsolescent. It’s not good for any use because you can’t meet the parking requirement, etc,” Broderick said.
That fact requires the city to be open to creative solutions to get the long-vacant property occupied, Broderick said.
The city has made similar situations work in the past, Mayor Linda Hudson noted.
“We already have a downtown school that functions at the waterfront, St. Andrew’s Academy. That school and the city have kind of worked out a way to work together, and so it has worked there for them,” Hudson said. “We do have a downtown school already functioning with limited parking and (other) challenges.”
Having to work around parking limitations in order to get property developed is a reality of being a 125-year-old city with an aging urban core, Commissioner Chris Dzadovsky said.
Wicker Perlis is TCPalm’s Watchdog Reporter for St. Lucie County. You can reach him at Wicker.Perlis@TCPalm.com.
This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: New school gets green light for vacant downtown Fort Pierce building
Reporting by Wicker Perlis, Treasure Coast Newspapers / Treasure Coast Newspapers
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By Wicker Perlis, Treasure Coast Newspapers | USA TODAY Network
