The Seminole County Board of County Commissioners approved paying a developer $740,000 for the cost of demolishing the old Flea World property.
- Seminole County commissioners approved CRA grant for developer
- Money for demolishing Flea World property
- Residents complained grant money not meant for big business
The plan is to build the Reagan Center in its place, which promises to add new retail stores, restaurants and homes to the busy stretch of U.S. Highway 17/92.
At Tuesday’s county commission meeting, about a dozen people spoke publicly – all of them asking county leaders to deny funding to the developer.
That developer, 17-92 Five Points, LLC, asked the county for $1.3 million in Community Redevelopment Agency grant money for the demolition costs and the costs of building utilities on the site. The CRA board approved that expenditure in April 2016.
The CRA money comes existing businesses in the area.
But residents argued the money shouldn’t be spent on a development that can make its own profit.
“It elevates somebody who’s obviously going to make a whole lot of millions of dollars, over people who might be just trying to start out,” said resident Bill Hyde.
“You’re picking the big guys over the little guys, and eventually it all comes home,” said resident H. Alexander Duncan.
Commissioners approved spending CRA money to reimburse the developer for demolishing the Flea World site, urging infrastructure leads to development.
“You put the infrastructure in and the development, the re-development, the improved development will come,” said Seminole County District 3 Commissioner Lee Constantine.
But the commissioners stopped short of paying several hundred thousand more dollars in CRA grants to the developer for the costs of building utilities on the project site.
“There’s no guarantee there would be vertical construction, which means they could take that money and flip it,” said Seminole County District 4 Commissioner Carlton Henley.