ST. CLOUD, Fla. – St. Cloud city leaders are making the case that going bigger could mean paying less.
At a May 14 city council meeting, Mayor Chris Robertson and council members defended a $60 million mixed-use development planned for downtown, arguing that expanding the commercial tax base is the best way to keep residents’ tax bills from climbing.
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The development, called “St. Cloud Commons,” is being led by Atlantic Housing Partners. Plans include a 542-space parking garage with an attached four-story building featuring retail on the ground floor and apartments on the upper three levels.
A second building will include additional commercial and apartment space, bringing the total to 150 apartments and more than 17,000 square feet of commercial space, all next to City Hall.
The parking garage will be built first, with construction expected to take about six months. The full project is slated for completion within two years.
“It’s important to have (people) living downtown to support the businesses in our community,” Robertson said.
“We need commercial development. If we don’t have commercial development, this city will fail. If we don’t have commercial development, taxes will have to be raised in order to operate the city.”
Council Member Kolby Urban addressed what he called widespread misconceptions about how the project is being financed.
“This is being funded by the CRA, which is a separate entity from the city. The CRA’s specific purpose is to redevelop properties to build the tax base for our city, and that’s exactly what this project is doing. If the city were to build its own parking garage, we would pay double, probably triple, to build our own. This is really going to be a huge catalyst for our downtown, and I think great for the residents of St. Cloud,” he said.
The St. Cloud Community Redevelopment Agency is contributing $6.25 million toward the project.
“You can either have the commercial pay for the operations of the city, or the taxpayers. We want the commercial to. We want jobs,” he said. “That’s why we have a traffic situation. It’s not just because we don’t have enough roads; we don’t have the jobs here. We are trying to accomplish that by creating commercial projects.
Not all residents share the enthusiasm. Nancy Joslin expressed concern about the scale of the project and what it could mean for the community’s character.
“Because it’s kind of like a big building. [There’s] just not a lot of homes right through here,” Joslin said.
Downtown business owner Jim Thomas said his feelings are mixed.
“It might be good for the support of the town, but I don’t know if it would be good for the community,” he said.
“It’s going to take away from the small downtown atmosphere. They just spent all this money on these brick roads to make it look homey downtown, and now they’re going to bring even more growth.”
Robertson said that density is critical to the survival of downtown businesses.
“If you don’t have people within walking distance of these businesses, they will continue to fail,” he said.
The mayor also acknowledged online concerns about the apartment units being designated as affordable housing. Of the 150 apartments, 75 will be available to residents earning up to 120% of the area’s median income. The remaining 75 are divided among income tiers: 18 units for those earning 30% of the area median income, 30 units for those at 60%, and 27 units for those at 80%.
“Low-income people, high-income people, medium-income people, we’re all people in our community. This is a project that allows for all types to live in one building and enjoy what our downtown has to offer,” he said.
The council also approved the voluntary annexation of the 743-acre Whaley Platt project, slated to be built south of Kissimmee Park Road — a development already approved by Osceola County.
Robertson explained why annexation makes financial sense for the city.
“This isn’t just raw land. It’s got the entitlements; it has the rights to build, and they can build it in the county as it stands,” he said. “If we don’t annex it in, we don’t get the impact fees and we don’t get the tax base.”
He addressed social media criticism directly.
“We get hit with ‘You’re approving thousands of units every time.’ Well, no. They already have the approvals, and if we do not take them in, they get built anyway, and we lose a lot of money. If the taxpayers want their taxes to go up, then we’ll stop annexing properties,” Robertson said.
In a separate action, the council approved the annexation and commercial future land use designation for a nearly 10-acre site on the west side of South Narcoossee Road, south of Lillian Black Road, but not before adding restrictions based on resident feedback. The council prohibited certain land uses at the site, including storage facilities, tire shops, and car washes.
“We hear what you don’t want anymore… that’s why last meeting we wanted those prohibited uses added to that,” Robertson said.
“That’s another reason why this is being annexed into the city. It’s going to be commercial; that means we get a higher tax base. It’s not going to be more homes; it’s not going to be townhomes, which,dosc if it were left in the county, that’s what it would have been. That’s what we want to do. If a project is going to be built, we want to make sure the people of our community have input in it.”
You can see the plans for the St. Cloud Commons below.