A few notes on Dixie Hwy.

I hope that you have had a chance to watch the videos from last Tuesday night's (8/27) CRA work session on the status of Dixie Hwy and the CRA and city's plans to encourage investment and redevelopment along this major arterial in Lake Worth and through other south Florida communities. Joan Oliva, Executive Director of the CRA and William Waters, the city's Director of Community Sustainability, did a good job of summarizing their efforts in helping turn things around along the corridor.

I'm not going to attempt to repeat everything that was said during the meeting, but it is important to remember a few things about Dixie Hwy. Lake Worth and other towns grew up along this road and in no small way owe their existence to it. Up until the early 1970s it was the only way to get north and south along the east coast of Florida. In many ways, you can think of it as America's Main Street. When the duty of handling long distance travel shifted to the new I-95, U.S. 1 turned to handling primarily local traffic. To a large degree, Lake Worth and other cities are still adjusting to that change more than 40 years later. That being said, the current business and building conditions found along the present-day Dixie Hwy were long in the making and will not be cured quickly.

However, there is hope. Mr. Waters pointed that we now have a set of land development regulations and that those regulations are going to make it easier for non-conforming uses and non-conforming buildings - much of the stock along Dixie Hwy. contains many examples of those - to be reused. There are issues with bringing up the buildings to "code" as it relates to the Florida Building Code. The value of the structures along the road are low enough that any investment in them usually requires bringing the whole building up to code - which can be a disincentive to redevelopment. Mr. Waters talked about having formal and informal gatherings and events where the city will promote the new LDRs to the real estate community, investors and professionals involved in the redevelopment business. There is also talk of workshops that would actually spotlight individual properties and present a "how to" or "see, you can do this" session which would show what can be done with some of these properties.

Parking is a concern, especially along the east side of Dixie Hwy, given the shallow depth of the lots. Shared use and temporary parking arrangements are being looked at and trouble-shooted. The changes in the LDRs make for smaller building footprints which may create more space for on-site parking in some instances.

We were also reminded at the meeting that Dixie Hwy is a long road and that is a challenge by itself. Just to best use the resources and money available, it might be best to focus on areas that already have something "going on" instead of areas that are clearly challenged. The CRA may select one, two, or three areas on which to focus their efforts. Different themes could be applied to different areas, as well. I mentioned the notion, as I often do, of a "Heritage Highway" designation that honors the importance of the road in relation to our city's historical development and this might be used by neighboring communities as well.

Commissioner Materio from West Palm Beach and owner of McMow Art Glass on Dixie Hwy in Lake Worth pointed out that our communities need to know what each other is doing along this road so that we can coordinate our efforts and avoid duplication. She talked about an exciting makeover of the Palm Coast Plaza in West Palm Beach that may become a mixed-use development. She also pointed out that the city of West Palm Beach owns the property immediately north of the C-51 canal, including the former I-Hop property. West Palm Beach, Lake Clark Shores and Lake Worth are looking into making that part of the canal navigable (which faces many stumbling blocks due to the water control structure just east of Dixie, but it is being worked on) in order to make the entire area more aesthetically appealing. One look at the back of the Arbor Plaza (north wall, south side of the canal) tells you that there is room for improvement.

The CRA will be working on a property inventory of the area along Dixie Hwy and has a signage/wayfinding plan which may help in this coming year's budget.

Add the imposition of higher utility fees than the surrounding commercial environment and that creates another impediment to reinvestment.

The moral of the story is that there are no easy fixes to the problem. They were long in the making and will take a while to correct. There are going to be down times, like now, for certain areas and we are just going to have to live through them. At some point, either the economy continues to improve, developable land in other communities becomes scarce and/or more expensive and then economics will lead people to Lake Worth. In the mean time, we may need to hold our breath for a while.