Diocese purchase ends hotel plan

DONALD W. CRICHLOW's ugly building will never be built, thanks to purchase by Diocese of St. Augustine, Florida


PETER GUINTA
peter.guinta@staugustine.com
Published Monday, August 31, 2009

The Catholic Diocese of St. Augustine has purchased the eastern half of the Bank of America's parking lot at Cathedral Place and St. George Street, ending any chance of a proposed new "turn-of-the-century style" hotel and shops ever being built there.

The Rev. Tom Willis, pastor of the Cathedral-Basilica of St. Augustine, told his congregation that he had "good news" for the parish, and at Sunday's 9 a.m. Mass, he announced that the diocese had purchased the property for parking. Applause followed his announcement. He said the announcement drew a similar reaction at other weekend Masses.

Kathleen Bagg, communications director for the Diocese, confirmed the sale but said both the Diocesan Chancellor Father Michael Morgan and the Diocese's chief financial officer could not be reached for comment, as it was the weekend. Financial details about the deal were unavailable.

The sale stemmed from Jacksonville developer Danny Schechter's option to buy the property from the Bank of America at an undisclosed price. But Schechter's plans to build were blocked by the city, so he then sold the option to the Diocese. Willis said the Diocese closed the sale on Tuesday.

The Diocese now owns the portion of the bank's parking lot from the Cathedral Place entrance to St. George Street, an estimated 25 spaces. The bank retained ownership of the rest.

According to Willis, parking is difficult to find for any of the Cathedral's Masses but more so for the 5 p.m. Masses on Saturday and Sunday. He said the Diocese is working out use of the lot because the lot is under contract between the bank and a parking management company.

St. Augustine City Commissioner Don Crichlow, an architect in private practice, was the project architect. He recused himself from voting on the project before the City Commission.

Crichlow said Sunday that he was disappointed Schechter wasn't going to pursue the project.

"He filed preliminary papers to sue the city, but I imagine all that will go away now," Crichlow said. "After I thought about it, I asked myself what would be worse, leaving it as a parking lot or having a fake colonial building on it?"

Several officials said Schechter and the Diocese had negotiated for a few weeks.

City Manager Bill Harriss said, "That's why the city had postponed (the planned) mediation."

Harriss said, "This started off as a story about architectural style and ended up a story about parking."

The Diocese owned that property long ago but had sold it to the bank in the 1960s. A brick structure on the site called the Bishop Building was built in 1897 and demolished in the 1960s.

Schechter in March proposed to reconstruct a "new" 21,000 square foot Bishop Building on the site, its top floor to be a 16-room, 13,000-square foot hotel, while the bottom floor would contain seven retail stores enclosing 8,000 square feet of space along both streets.

The L-shaped building would have its 121-foot long side along St. George Street, while the shorter side opened to Cathedral Place.

This proposal, though given a Certificate of Appropriateness by the Historic Architectural Review Board, became controversial because some St. Augustine residents said a 1900s-era building there would clash with the Second Spanish Period buildings downtown.

Crichlow had designed the modern re-creation that would go up at 180 St. George St. He

said he designed the estimated $4 million-to-$5 million building to match the original structure there and conform to nearby structures from the turn-of-the-century commercial period.

"Every building should complement the architecture around it," Crichlow said.

But in April, the City Commission rejected the requested zoning change for the project and instead passed a resolution requiring new construction in the Historic District to be solely Second Spanish Period.

Crichlow said Sunday his architectural rendering of the proposed new Bishop Building would go into his firm's archives.

"It's been decided. One of the most prominent corners in the city will be a colonial parking lot," he said. "That is disappointing. But that's part of this business. I believe that, in addition to colonial, we should bring back other architectural styles to retain a piece of history that we've lost."