Renaissance ahead for Clearwater's aging Marina area
By Steven Girardi | Tribune Staff
Tampa Tribune
Published: Aug 22, 2015

CLEARWATER – The local foot traffic in the North Fort Harrison Avenue area included a fair share of drug addicts and prostitutes when Nancy O'Neill gambled and decided to open a restaurant five years ago.

She soon found a way to deal with that threat, calling on some old friends.

"When I first opened, I had a motorcycle club come down. That opened some eyes,” she said. "They think I'm crazy, so they kind of leave me alone.”

Now, she said, on Saturday nights, the parking lot at Nauti-Nancy's at 700 Eldridge St. "looks like a Mercedes commercial.” New customers and old-time Clearwater families alike, including Mayor George Cretekos, fill the colorful Caribbean-themed restaurant on a regular basis, she said.

With help from police, and with a highly-rated seafood and Cajun menu, O'Neill has staked out a place in an almost forgotten neighborhood the city of Clearwater has targeted as its next redevelopment area.

In the next three months, beginning on Wednesday, the city planning department will be hosting monthly community meetings where residents, business people and anyone interested can offer ideas on what this Old Clearwater Bay neighborhood might become.

Working with those suggestions, and with the Stantec consulting firm of Tampa, the city will draft a North Marina Area Master Plan to revitalize what once was a vibrant community along the tree-shaded bluffs a few blocks north of downtown.

Senior City Planner Katie See said the plan will lean upon thoughts from the meeting participants.

"We don't have anything in particular in mind,” she said. "We're honestly waiting to see what comes of those recommendations.”

Certain priorities have been identified, such as preserving or expanding boating options at the Seminole Boat Launch, more parking, establishing a link to downtown and protecting the bluff, she said.

"It's very important we maintain the view along the water, and from the water looking up onto the property, not only from the land looking toward the water,” See said.

The city zeroed in on the area on the recommendation of Urban Land Institute consultants, who in their study for the city identified it as a prime redevelopment opportunity and potential link to downtown.

The 64 acres mapped out in the North Marina Area are between Clearwater Bay on the west and Pinellas Trail to the east, near Myrtle Avenue, and Cedar Street to the north and Eldridge Street to the south. The neighborhood includes the Seminole Boat Launch, the Francis Wilson Playhouse and the school board's vacant North Ward School built in 1912.

"One thing they noticed was (it) was close to downtown, but far enough away to be its own unique area,” See said. It offers an opportunity to capitalize on the waterfront and the potential to connect it to the Pinellas Trail through development.

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The neighborhood's historic assets could be incorporated into a plan that is likely to emphasize the boating community and the docks, possibly with a high-and-dry marina. Also, the historic red-brick school building, with a view of the water, could fit into a plan, See said.

"It's a beautiful building. It would sure be a shame to lose it,” See said.

Other possibilities include shops, restaurants or housing, she said, depending on what people want. New development could be a catalyst to redeveloping the deteriorating blocks to the north, as well as leading people to discover downtown.

"It would be great if folks could get off their boat at the Seminole Boat Ramp and say, ‘Hey, let's drive to downtown,'” See said. "We're hoping to get more interconnections here.”

City Commissioner Hoyt Hamilton, who grew up in Clearwater and Clearwater Beach, remembers a high-and-dry marina at the boat ramps in the '60s and '70s. "That was the boating center of Clearwater,” he said.

That facility would move to the Island Estates community, off the Memorial Causeway that connects downtown Clearwater to the beach.

Hamilton, whose family has operated the Palm Pavilion properties on Clearwater Beach since the 1960s, said the city's economic and residential center shifted east to the Countryside subdivisions and malls in the late 1970s and '80s, and downtown neighborhoods headed for a decline.

North Ward was one of the city's first schools, Amtrak trains ran on what is now the Pinellas Trail, and commercial mullet fishing was a thriving trade until the state banned net fishing along the shore in the 1990s, according to the Clearwater Historical Society.

"That used to be the energy of Clearwater,” said Hamilton, who graduated from Clearwater High School in 1976. "The Old Clearwater Bay neighborhood was always a nice neighborhood. But when you don't have commercial (property), it got old and lots of people moved.”

He said an expanded high-and-dry marina could reinvigorate the boating community there at a time when dock space is limited, though he knows some residents are anxious about it. Mostly, he wants to make sure something gets done in the district.

"I don't want this to be another exercise in coming up with something and then have the plan end up on a shelf collecting dust,” Hamilton said. "We have to move forward with something.”

O'Neill, a boater and native New Yorker, likes the marina idea and how it capitalizes on the area's assets. But she is looking forward to anything that will help her business maintain its foothold and improve the neighborhood around it. She has been on the neighborhood's marina board during the past year.

"There's a lot of good in the neighborhood, and there's a lot of bad,” she said. "I was kind of a pioneer coming up here.”

She still would like better code enforcement and continues to work with police, whom she credited with helping to run off the drug traffickers after she moved in. Now, she said there are plans for a townhouse development across the street, and her seafood, pasta and creole menu is attracting a local following after a couple of rough years.

found a niche,” she said. "People like it. It's a funky building, and we're off the beaten path.”

master plan community meetings are scheduled for 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday; 5:30 to 8:30 Sept. 16; and 5:30 to 7:30 Oct. 20. The meetings will be at the North Greenwood Recreation Center, 900 N. Martin Luther King Jr. Ave.

formation, contact Katie See at (727) 562-4557 or katie.see@myclearwater.com

rardi@tampatrib.com