City buying Bridge Plaza out-parcel | St. Lucie County

PORT ST. LUCIE – The City Council here approved the purchase of a 9.4-acre parcel belonging to the Bridge Plaza shopping center near the southwest corner of Port St. Lucie and Westmoreland boulevards on Jan. 12 in order to provide more parking and accessibility to the adjacent Riverwalk and Port District.

Community Redevelopment Agency Director Jennifer Davis introduced the property acquisition resolution for Tracts C and F of Bridge Plaza to the Board that afternoon.

“The property’s located on the east side of the St. Lucie River immediately adjacent to Tract E, which is the boardwalk connection to the river,” she said. “As far as the purchase and sale agreement, it would be for a purchase price of $300,000. There is an inspection period of 30 days from the effective date, with the closing 30 days thereafter. We are targeting no later than March 31 for closing.”

Davis emphasized that the acquisition would support the Port District Master Plan and credited a former city manager for helping negotiate the terms of the deal with property owner FGC, Inc.

“We’ve presented some initial concept designs to see what could happen with that site by providing additional parking, a restroom building and picnic pavilions with shade structures,” she explained. “We’ll also note this allows for greater flexibility when we consider the branding and the gateway features that would be on the western end of the Port District. We will go through a complete process of developing a full plan for the site and taking public input for how that is going to be laid out. We do recommend the acquisition, and I want to take a moment to thank Russ Blackburn because he did the heavy lifting on working with the negotiations with the seller.”

Mayor Shannon Martin, in turn, expressed her gratitude to both Davis and Blackburn.

“Thank you and many thanks to Russ,” she said. “We all know that parking is much needed, especially in that area. So, any additional opportunity to add parking is really important.”

Vice-Mayor Jolien Caraballo then chimed in to set the record straight on the actual value of the land in question.

“That parcel was actually being sold for $900,000-plus,” she said. “So, looking at the price of acquisition, I want to thank the team for their diligence to ensure the city wasn’t paying top-dollar price. Congratulations to the city manager and team. I would love for us to look at creating a cut-out where we could have transportation provided. I foresee that as parking at some point in time, and then we would have a trolley service so they’re not having to walk the distance of the Port District.”

Vice-Mayor Caraballo also hopes the city’s purchase will spur new growth and additions to the shopping center itself.

“In regards to the plaza, is there any conversation that’s occurring with the owners and any of these investors that may be interested in redeveloping the Bridge Plaza area to enhance what’s already being done in the Port District?” she asked.

“There has been interest by some of the restaurants there of having the ability to expand or do something a little different,” Davis answered. “They have great occupancy in that entire plaza, which is wonderful. We love to see that, but it does present some challenges. The biggest challenge is that Tract E – where our boardwalk connection goes to the river – initially was part of the entire site plan and had a parking garage and offices on on it. So, it accommodated a lot more of the infrastructure that would be needed to support the site.”

Davis pointed out that the property owner had previously struggled to market the outparcel due to its limitations.

“As developers have come in to propose to purchase this property, there was a big challenge with parking,” Davis continued. “So, we’re going to look at what this site can present as far as parking that benefits our patrons going to the boardwalk and also how it can look at the entire site. I know since I’ve been with the CRA, we’ve had Bridge Plaza kind of re-imagined in our plan.”

Vice-Mayor Caraballo agreed.

“I would love to even get the Economic Development Council involved and see if we can begin those conversations to see what the long-term vision is for the owner of the parcel,” she said. “Then seeing is there anyway we can come alongside and help it become even greater than what it is today.”

“And that’s the point of the CRA, to put back into the area,” Mayor Martin chimed back in. “So, we should be looking at what those options are. Several years ago, we did have a meeting and renderings were shown [of] a two-story and what it could look like in the future as we continued to develop the Port.”

Davis acknowledged that those renderings actually formed part of the master plan.

“Again, the challenge is with the parking and maintaining proper flow,” she said of the plaza’s current parking lot. “So, I think those concepts will translate really well as we continue that conversation.”

Those ideas pumped Mayor Martin.

“It will be great to see what all the options are,” she concluded. “It could be a great example of a public partnership that we could enter into in order to make that area even better than it is right now.”

The City Council then voted unanimously to approve the out-parcel purchase.