Building project shot down -- Turn-of-the-century architecture, size the main complaints

Building project shot down -- Turn-of-the-century architecture, size the main complaints

By PETER GUINTA
peter.guinta@staugustine.com
Publication Date: 06/09/09

A zoning change that would allow a two-story brick hotel and seven retail shops to be built at 180 St. George St. was denied Monday night in a 4-0 vote by St. Augustine City Commission.

Commissioner Nancy Sikes-Kline made the motion to deny.

The board seemed to be influenced by public comment, which mostly opposed the project's turn-of-the-century architecture, as well as its large mass and scale.

Commissioner Leanna Freeman gave one reason for her vote to deny: "There is not substantial and competent evidence to support a rezoning."

St. Augustine architect Jerry Dixon, opposing the project, said a 2003 city resolution allowing architectural styles other than colonial in historic preservation districts is invalid because it effectively changes the Comprehensive Plan.

But Florida law, he said, requires the Plan to be changed only by ordinance.

"The resolution eliminated the standard for new construction in historic preservation districts," Dixon said.

St. Augustine architect Howard Davis also opposed the project, saying the invalid resolution was "far reaching" and "violates all of the progress (in preservation) made over the years.

"It will put the brakes on future colonial development on St. George Street," he said.

Some residents complained about the possible traffic and congestion that seven stores and a hotel would bring to that corner, others with the loss of parking spaces as the hotel would take up half the Bank of America parking lot.

St. Augustine architect Peter Rumpel supported the project, saying colonial architecture on that corner would not "interface" with St. George Street.

The project, he said, would have large shop windows and larger doors than allowed with Spanish colonial.

Charles Pellicer, a St. Augustine attorney whose Minorcan ancestors came here in 1777, said, "This is a watershed decision. If there is a center of town, this is it."

Commissioner Don Crichlow, the hotel's architect, used that 2003 resolution as a basis for choosing a style that matches nearby turn-of-the-century structures.

He decided to re-create the historic Bishop's Building, a brick structure on that site torn down in the 1960s.

But after the vote, Crichlow said building only colonial architecture without a historical basis is wrong.

"You don't build fake history and expect people to buy it," he said. "We're going in the wrong direction."

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