[The West's newest skyline king--Las Vegas?]

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. I've got to go out there for vacation to see what is going on. I have heard so many stories, mostly good, about Vegas.

FLORIDA SKYRISE ORDER

[TallySheet]

Developer seeks approval for new downtown condos

Another out-of-state developer has targeted downtown Tallahassee for the site of a new condominium project.

ADAR Developer Group, from South Florida, is in the final stages of getting approval for a $20 million, 80-unit condo development near the Florida State University music school.

The 10-story building, Symphony Project, will also have a bottom floor for retail and restaurant space. The developers said they have had their eyes on downtown for two years, monitoring the city's growth and economic development plans.

The group is also working on a second, even larger mixed-use development, about a half-mile away from the Symphony Project. Mayor John Marks believes this new development, along with several projects already underway, shows that the city is being noticed for its potential evolution as a prime location to settle down for professionals.

For the full story, read tomorrow's Tallahassee Democrat.

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10 stories isn't nothing to write home about, but for Tallahassee this is breaking news.

FLORIDA SKYRISE ORDER

[Gainesville projects]

Original article

Article published Jan 2, 2005

Big projects revisited

Whatever happened to those really grand projects?

Patricia Crawford doesn't pay attention to the non-believers.

The Gainesville woman knows there are skeptics who doubt her plans to build a $400 million movie studio in Newberry will ever materialize.

She's aware that some would rather lump it with the projects that promise at the blueprint stage to be the first, the biggest, the best, but in the end disappear with little but rumors and speculation in their wake.

"You're always going to have the naysayers," said Crawford, who maintains that plans for the studio are progressing and that financial backing is materializing. "What are you going to do about them?"

Here's a look at five of the many large-scale projects to capture Alachua County's interest in the recent past, and an update on whether or not the big dreamers who spearheaded the proposals are still working to prove the naysayers wrong.

It would have been the tallest building in Alachua County.

Developers of the Midtown project, proposed for a four-block area at SW 2nd Avenue and SW 6th Street in Gainesville, hoped to build a high-rise complex in Gainesville that would have included a 26-story building.

Two shorter towers would have housed apartments for University of Florida undergrads and a hotel, and retail stores would have occupied the ground floor of the buildings.

UF grad Ben Schachter and his father, Marvin Schachter, who was a consultant on the project, ended three years of controversy about the project when they failed to meet a deadline in September for submitting plans to Gainesville's planning department.

Ralph Hilliard, city planning manager, said from the city's perspective, the project is now "dead, really."

"Everything has expired," Hilliard said. "The project, the process, is over."

The developers would have to start the development review process over with a new proposal, Hilliard said, and a new city height restriction would require them to apply for a special exception to build their high-rise building.

The Schachters could not be reached for comment this week.

They have not said whether they plan to file new plans for the project.

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Seems that Gainesville has caught come of the flu from its northeast called Jacksonvilleitis, i.e., leaders and politicians can't agree on anything or get nothing done!

I have been to Gainesville and it is a beautiful, laid back but decent sized city of almost 100,000 inhabitants. Sarasota, Florida, with a population of a little over 60,000 has skyscrapers all over its downtown; Gainesville should look like St. Petersburg or even any other major Florida City; instead, it is a cowpoke college town.

The leaders in Gainesville work similar to the leaders in Jacksonville, they can never agree on anything or get anything moving or completed. A high-rise or several high-rises in downtown Gainesville would really boost the image of this already popular town notorious for its college and educational amenities.

FLORIDA SKYRISE ORDER