Diane Steinle: Lowe's learns what Wal-Mart hasn't: concessions can seal a deal

By Diane Steinle, Editor of Editorials-North Pinellas
In print: Thursday, April 10, 2008

This flat, sandy, nearly treeless site south of the Anclote River needs to be rezoned to accommodate Lowe’s new store.
	[JIM DAMASKE | Times (2006)]

Story Tools E-mail this story Contact the editor Print this story Comment on this story Social Bookmarking [+] Digg Facebook Stumbleupon Reddit Del.icio.us Newsvine

ADVERTISEMENT

The Pinellas County Commission approved another big box store for Tarpon Springs on Tuesday. This time, the public didn't show up to object. And County Commission was willing to violate one of its own stated goals — to preserve industrially zoned land for future clean industrial uses — to give the project a go-ahead.

Why is the plan for a Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse on U.S. 19 cruising to apparent approval, while the plan for a Wal-Mart Supercenter just north on the same road is still stuck in neutral after three years? One of the reasons was apparent at Tuesday's County Commission meeting. Lowe's is offering something Tarpon and county officials really want: money for a road project that will help solve a difficult problem on U.S. 19.

Several years ago U.S. 19 was channelized to close dangerous two-way median openings. The project reduced accidents, but created problems for industrial and commercial businesses on U.S. 19 in Tarpon Springs. There are few traffic signals to stop traffic along that stretch, making it extremely difficult for the big trucks that deliver goods to those businesses to cross U.S. 19 to access the channelized median breaks. Some businesses are struggling to get deliveries as a result.

A Lowe's on the northwest corner of U.S. 19 and Pine Street would seem only to worsen the problem, but Lowe's has offered to pay to realign Live Oak Street with Spruce Street just north of the store site and provide a traffic light at Spruce and U.S. 19. Motorists won't like being slowed by a new traffic light on what is now an open stretch of U.S. 19 north of Tarpon Avenue, but truckers who can make their way to Live Oak/Spruce Street will find it much easier to get on U.S. 19 and go north or south.

It didn't hurt that Tarpon Springs has long wanted to realign Live Oak Street to provide a direct corridor from U.S. 19 to the Sponge Docks. With the Lowe's offer, the city wouldn't have to pay for the project and could get a traffic light too. A proposed development agreement between the city and Lowe's even calls for Lowe's to give the city $150,000 toward an eventual extension of Spruce Street east of U.S. 19 to Jasmine Avenue, another project city officials have wanted.

For county commissioners, the public purpose to be served by the road improvements trumped the commission's determination to save the little remaining land in Pinellas designated for industrial use. The 13-acre parcel where the store will be built has a land use designation of Industrial Limited now, but it must be changed to Commercial General.

Interestingly, the county planning staff as well as the staff of the Pinellas Planning Council had recommended denial of the Lowe's project so the property could retain its industrial land use. Mike Meidel, the county's own economic development director, warned commissioners that other property owners would follow Lowe's, seeking to have industrial land changed to commercial land, which increases its value. County planning director Brian Smith warned that the traffic impacts from a commercial use like the Lowe's store are much higher than from an industrial use.

Yet commissioners unanimously approved the change. Commissioner John Morroni pointed out that the parcel has been vacant for years, so the industrial land use apparently hasn't been a positive for the property. Commissioner Calvin Harris noted that the Live Oak realignment would help tourists find the Sponge Docks and promote tourism. Several commissioners mentioned that the road work Lowe's would pay for would benefit the public, other businesses in the area and would preserve stretched tax dollars for other projects. And besides, they said, most of the other uses along U.S. 19 are commercial.

No one spoke up about wetlands north of the Lowe's site, and there was no outpouring of concern for the environment that has stymied plans for the Wal-Mart. The difference in the two sites may account for that. The Wal-Mart store is proposed on a tree-covered tract on the bank of the Anclote River. The Lowe's store is proposed on what has been called a "sand pit" — a cleared, flat, sandy and unattractive property at a major intersection well south of the river.

So the loss of land on which new industry could locate continues in Pinellas. And owners of industrial land who would like the designation changed to something else now know that if they offer the right goodies, it can happen.

Diane Steinle's e-mail address is dsteinle@sptimes.com