At the City Commission meeting on September 23, the Commissioners heard Resolution 24-465 to change the terms of the development agreement for the old Post Office building. The two-year contract with the developer, Plant City Development Group, LLC, expired on September 18. The change requested pushing back the expiration date to May 15, 2025. The building, located at 301 W. Reynolds Street neardowntown, was a United States Post Office before it closed in 2013 due to health and safety concerns. The City purchased the property in 2018.
“This is one of those things where it gets to be challenging because we have been waiting on this project,” said Mayor Nate Kilton. “But at the same time, not being a professional development, we’ve seen in conversations before how difficult it is for folks these days to do these projects. Any type of development is a challenge. There has been so much energy invested by both parties. Some of it is we can’t control what we can’t control. We can’t control what the economy looks like. We can control our investment in our community, and we can control conversation and the development agreements. But sometimes we have to have a little bit of patience. And I feel that is where we need to be right now, because all we are going to lose here is time. I would be in favor of extending this for them.”
The development plan is to tear down the current building, and build a new project with 120 one-, two-, and three-bedroom, market-rate apartments, ranging from 548 to 996 square-feet. The structure will have parking on the ground and second floors, a swimming pool on the third floor, and a sky restaurant on the sixth floor.
The developer asked for this eight-month extension because of concerns about the current inflationary, high interest rates for business loans. The developer hopes to see interest rates decline enough to stimulate investor interest in the project, and is asking for enough time to see those rate cuts materialize, then continue to move forward on the project.
“Is it possible during that eight-month extension, that every two or three months we can get an update on what is going on instead of waiting eight months—until May—for the City Manager to come back with a report?” Commissioner Mathis requested. “If we agree on this today, come back before the Christmas holiday, so that we get an update on where we are.” City Manager Bill McDaniel agreed to contact the developer, get the information, and provide that to the City Commissioners as Commissioner Mathis requested.
“I really like that idea,” said Vice Mayor Jason Jones. “I agree this is a project we want to see happen. This is a project that would be great for Plant City, and great for the downtown. I was having a problem with eight months, but if we get an update halfway through, I don’t have a problem with the eight months. We have given extensions on this project, not in this phase, but they have had some time, and I would hope eight months would be the last extension, and we would see something positive—hear something positive—on our update halfway through—great idea.”
City Commissioners voted 3-0 (with one abstention to avoid conflict of interest) to approve the resolution for the extension.