Mayor Rob Marlowe
For years, I kept hearing the same old refrain. It went something like: “Why can’t New Port Richey be like Dade City”, “Why can’t New Port Richey be like Dunedin” or “Why can’t New Port Richey be like (pick a city).”
The idea was that if we developed a thriving collection of antique stores like Dade City or somehow copied a more successful city, all of our problems would go away. We suffered from a poor self image. This resulted in our inability to articulate exactly why someone should consider New Port Richey as a place to live and work.
The poor self image was contagious. As new developments bloomed just south of us, the developers created an alternate name, “Trinity” for the post office’s designation of the area as part of the greater New Port Richey area. A number of businesses bought into the fiction that somehow their prospects would be better by building new facilities out in the empty fields along SR 54. What they got was urban sprawl with no central business hub.
The question of “Why can’t we be like…” completely missed the point. We are not Dade City. We are not Dunedin. We are New Port Richey. We have distinct strengths that we need to emphasis. Our city has started the process of defining ourselves as something unique and worth being a part of.
Trying to recruit retail stores into the downtown failed abysmally. My own business, Gulfcoast Networking, would never have survived a dozen years downtown if we had been dependent on retail sales. There simply hasn’t been enough foot traffic and the weekend special events have been notable for their complete failure to create foot traffic for retailers. As a result, the downtown went for years with a massive vacancy rate that has only recently begun to change.
The good news is that things have been changing. We aren’t seeing a single change, but rather several trends that are reshaping New Port Richey before our eyes:
We’ve begun attracting high tech companies to New Port Richey. The business incubator opened full of tech startups. Some of those startups now have their own office space downtown. Both city and business leaders are now looking at the issue of bringing the sort of Internet bandwidth necessary to take us to the next level. I spoke this past week with a downtown business owner who has a 500 x 500 meg FIOS connection and could use more bandwidth!
We’ve started the transition from bars and all you can drink specials to a real entertainment district. We now have weekly entertainment at multiple venues, including both professional and community theaters. We have an expanding variety of restaurant choices a short walking distance from each other.
New shops are opening. Some existing businesses, like the New Port Richey Florist, are actually moving from the SR 54 / Trinity area to downtown New Port Richey.
The city has taken steps to clean up the appearance of our city. It is no longer acceptable to let rental properties fall into disrepair. It is no longer acceptable to sit in a parking lot and drink yourself into a stupor. The city will be addressing other appearance and quality of life issues in the coming weeks and months.
We are beginning the very difficult task of reshaping our neighborhoods. The city has been tearing down blighted properties. Citizens have been taking things into their own hands, like building the new community garden on Grand, just south of the downtown. Neighbors are getting together for block parties. What we are seeing is grass roots community building in progress.
New Port Richey’s faith community has stepped forward to address the needs of the hungry, the homeless, and the victims of this past summer’s flooding.
The first “Walk in the Park with the City Council” event drew a large crowd to the Grey Preserve. Many of the folks who attended had never been to the park. We just finished paving Plathe Road so that you can now visit the park without needing a four wheel drive vehicle.
This past weekend’s “Walk Through History” tour downtown attracted an even larger group. You could almost see the mental gears turning as people looked around and imagined what things will look like in a month or a year from now.
There has been push back from some quarters that are uncomfortable with change.
In the vast majority of cases, we’ve been able to successfully share our vision of where the city is heading. I took a construction tour of Sims Park a couple of weeks ago with representatives of the Chasco Fiesta committee. The group imagined what sort of opportunities the new park will offer when the Fiesta returns next spring. I believe it is safe to say that they are excited about how much better the park will be as a concert / event venue when it reopens.
More changes and improvements are coming: The council will sit as the Community Redevelopment Agency at 6pm this Tuesday (tonight) to discuss a development agreement that promises to ensure the completion of the long stalled Main Street Landings project. We are taking the initial steps forward on Orange Lake improvements that will include walkways out over the lake. We’ve been working through plans for improvements needed at the Recreation and Aquatic Center, including how to better market memberships.
The excitement in New Port Richey is palpable. Hardly a day goes by without somebody telling me how happy they are to see the changes in progress in our city. The negative people are becoming fewer and fewer.
The icing on the cake was when my wife came home two weekends ago and told me of a conversation she had walked in on where someone asked: “Why can’t Palm Harbor be like New Port Richey.”
It would appear that we are well on our way to making New Port Richey into the sort of city that others can now aspire to become. I hope you are as excited as I am about where New Port Richey is headed.
Rob Marlowe, Mayor
P.S. We’ve got lots of stuff on the calendar this month:
The Coteeman Triathlon returns this Saturday. You can get more information at coteeman.com.
There will be a free benefit concert for Tatiana Brizhaneva at 3pm on Sunday afternoon at the First United Methodist Church on the corner of Jefferson and Indiana. You won’t want to miss this amazing pianist.
November 21st is another city cleanup day where you can drop off household junk a the Frances Avenue Park or at the city’s property (Old Christian Scientist Church) on South River Road.
“It is no longer acceptable to let rental properties fall into disrepair.”
Many properties in New Port Richey that are for rent are far below what I would call an acceptable level of repair. The apartments at the southwest corner of Delaware Ave and Van Buren Street would be an excellent example. Illegal dumping from departing tenants of properties just like this one is also a rampant problem. People dump refrigerators, couches, chairs–my neighbor even has a TV sitting in front of their house that has been out there for months.
“It is no longer acceptable to sit in a parking lot and drink yourself into a stupor.”
Unless you’re the City Manager of Port Richey Tom O’Neill or former New Port Richey Detective. Sweep it under the rug until it’s been long enough that no one remembers.
Well put Jon.
The Port Richey city manager got an unpaid 30 day suspension, among other punishments. The detective lost his job. Last time I checked, we did not have an option for public floggings. The incidents, particularly the one involving the Port Richey city manager two years ago could have been handled better and likely would have been if it occurred now. Our police department is learning from its mistakes.
As far as the properties are concerned, code enforcement is working their way through them. There is an appeal of an order to demolish a building on next Tuesday’s agenda. There is also a community cleanup next weekend and you can pick up the stuff you see and drop it off in the dumpsters that we will be setting up at the former church on South River and at Frances Avenue Park.
As long as NPR does not seriously address the homeless population, the prostitutes, the state of the trashy motels and trailer parks the prostitutes take their johns to, the drug dealers and users hanging around on the sidewalks and the alleys in the downtown area within walking distance of the police station, the slumlords AND homeowners who are not forced to keep their homes up, the used car lots every couple of hundred feet or across the street from each other, people will say I wish NPR was like fill-in-the blank, or leave. My little corner of “paradise” was a haven for these activities. The police were on my street once a week, domestic disturbances took place on the street, drug dealers ran up and down this little cul-de-sac constantly. Both the Police Dept. and Code Enforcement did an outstanding job in trying to control the situation. But it was a constant, daily struggle with these low-lifes. Almost no one moved out on their own, they either ran out before they got evicted, or were evicted. I am originally from Florida and bought what I thought would be my last house when I retired. But I could not stay, thanks to all the illegal activities that are a constant if you don’t live along the river or in a deed restricted community. I lost a fortune on the house, and it was not mansion. I could not even sell it. All prospective buyers had to do was look around and notice the condition over the slumlord owned properties around me. I lost the house to foreclosure. Good luck with changing perception. Palm Harbor, Dunedin, Safety Harbor have thriving little downtown areas that cannot be compared to downtown NPR, with its vacant storefronts and the unsavory characters that hang around. When I first started reading this article I thought maybe the City was going to form some type of coalition with these other cities in order to find out what they are doing right. A mistake on my part since it turns out to be a brag session for all the same old things that have not changed in years. The negative people are becoming fewer and fewer because we are leaving.
Bear with us Amy. We are working on a number of long standing problems. We actually had a group of folks come in from out of town last Tuesday to protest our plans to keep our parks from being turned into soup kitchens every weekend. We stuck up for the citizens of New Port Richey and passed the ordinance that the outside agitators were trying to block. Interestingly enough, the protest was organized by two of the same out of town individuals who tried unsuccessfully to prevent us from building a new playground and splash pad in Sims Park for the children of our city.
We’ve been going through the appeal process with one of the motels you referred to. If the owner can’t or won’t control the activities in his motel, it needs to be closed (again) and stay closed. The police are actively working with several other motels along US 19 that have problematic histories. Those motels will either clean up their acts or we will close them down. We have a nuisance ordinance on the books that will let us deal with them.
Another recently passed ordinance gives the police the power, for the first time, to address the folks standing around in parking lots and drinking. Some of those same folks are likely dealing drugs, so we get a double benefit from the ordinance.
Dealing with prostitution is a problem. A lot of the prostitution seems to be driven by drugs. While we can go after the prostitutes, we also need to catch the johns that are using them. The sort of public shaming that Jon wants for city employees who fall short would be a powerful deterrent for the men who are creating the demand for prostitutes.
Look around the downtown again. Those empty storefronts are filling up.
We may not have a coalition with other cities, but we do have five members of council that are pushing hard to change things for the better.
Admittedly, we’ve still got a lot of work to do, but things ARE changing and more folks are recognizing it every day.