Duval pocket park ok’d

Duval pocket park ok’d

BY PRU SOWERS

KONK LIFE STAFF WRITER

Despite concerns from some residents that turning the 1400 block of Duval Street over to a private business group for a sidewalk café was a “land grab,” Key West City Commissioners voted to go ahead with the deal.

The agreement allows a partnership headed up by Michael Halpern, owner of the Southernmost House, the waterfront hotel that is adjacent to the block-long stretch of Duval that ends at the Atlantic Ocean, to turn the block into a pedestrian-only space complete with café tables, landscaping and a food truck. The Southernmost House and across-the-street neighbor Southernmost Beach Café will both offer take-out food for purchase, with customers using the park and tables for their meals. The nine existing parking spots currently located on the block will be eliminated.

In return, Halpern and his partners have agreed to pay for the project, including creating the pedestrian park space, planting landscaping, removing the sidewalk and curb, and installing some type of stormwater improvements. The block often floods during high winds and rotting seaweed frequently washes onto the pavement.

Multiple speakers at the Aug. 7 city commission meeting spoke in favor of the deal. But several others were against it, worried that only customers of the two restaurants would be allowed to use the park. Resident Tom Milone said that he thought the original concept of a pocket park at that location was a good idea. But since the idea was raised in February, Milone said the food service percentage of the proposed park has grown considerably in the new design.

“I think that’s incompatible with a pocket park. I think it would make the public feel unwelcome unless you want to purchase something,” he said.

“Can I carry my lunch in and sit at a table,” asked another resident, Kathleen Ford. “Can I bring my family in? Can we sit with our own chairs?”

But Halpern argued that the deal was a public-private partnership, with the city retaining ownership of the block, and that it would remain open to the non-paying public. The contract calls for the partners to lease the property from the city at the going rate other business pay to operate a private business on city-owned land, such as the Conch Republic Seafood Company and the Waterfront Brewery, both located at the historic seaport. That rate is currently set at 6.5 percent of gross revenues.

“It can’t be a land grab if the city owns the property before and the city owns the property after we put $700,000 or a million [dollars] into the property,” Halpern said.

Several of the speakers in favor of the pocket park were local business owners themselves, raising the question of whether the Duval pocket park would set a precedent for commercial use of public sidewalks for restaurant seating or other business uses. Jim Gilleran, a member of the Key West Planning Board and owner of 801 Bar, spoke at the commission meeting, saying the 1400 block of Duval Street has been an eyesore for years. He urged commissioners to approve the project.

“It’s a process to take private funds to improve public property,” he said.

Halpern has been waiting years for city officials to make good on their promise to close the one-block section of Duval to traffic and turn it into an open plaza. The last time it was formally proposed was in 2016, when part of the $2.1 million the city received from the BP Oil spill settlement was set aside for improvements to several local parks, including building the Duval end pocket park. But while the money was enough to make repairs and renovations to several existing parks, it ran out before the new plaza could be built in the 1400 block.

The final agreement commissioners approved included several conditions that will be added to the lease to address concerns voiced by some of the speakers. Commissioner Richard Payne proposed that the agreement include signage and other methods that will advertise and protect non-paying public access to the new space. Payne also asked that food service hours be limited to 11 am to 8 pm.

In other news from the Aug. 7 meeting, commissioners voted down a proposal put forth by Mayor Craig Cates to explore putting a powerboat museum in the city-owned former diesel energy plant in Bahama Village. Cates, a former powerboat racer himself, had been approached by the World Powerboat Foundation, a non-profit group affiliated with Race World Offshore, a professional powerboat racing organization, to explore turning the abandoned, historic building into a museum. However, objections to the proposal came quickly when it was revealed that the foundation also wanted the right to produce powerboat races in Key West in the future as part of the deal without allowing other racing organizations to bid. The vote to deny the proposal was unanimous.

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