Packed Big-Box Meeting Puts Commissioner in the Hot Seat

If Hillsborough County Commissioner Al Higginbotham has any clout with the owner and developer of the property on Bloomingdale Avenue, adjacent to the Bloomingdale Regional Library, then surely he will be using it this morning, June 11, to convince that group's attorney that there is a pressing, if not a moral obligation, to meet with residents concerned about big-box retail and apartment complex construction there.

Last night, at the Brandon Community Center on Sadie Street, Higginbotham sat beside Hillsborough County attorney Adam Gormley and stood before the packed multipurpose room, where he listened to about three hours of questions and concerns. He told the group that he had a meeting with the developer's representative 8 a.m. today, June 11.

Earlier in the day June 10, in a pre-meeting interview with Patch, Higginbotham said he had invited the developer, Redstone Properties, and its attorney, David Singer, to the June 10 community meeting, but that "Mr. Singer said it would not be advantageous to his client to attend tonight."

The meeting room in Brandon was filled to capacity and — thanks to inadequate air conditioning — stuffy and hot, a point Higginbotham alluded to many times in his opening comments.

After one of those times a resident called out, "You should have had it at the high school then."

Residents organized under the auspices of Coordinated Active Neighborhoods Development Organization (CAN-DO), also known as, "Say No to Bloomingdale Big Box," have been actively protesting the development project and meeting to discuss possible strategies for blocking what has been described as a done-deal.

They had hoped to switch the meeting place to Bloomingdale High School, just west of the proposed development, for which CAN-DO was willing to foot the bill, but Higginbotham said the change was not possible because of the confusion it would cause. He said meeting places closer to the development site were not available at the time his staff had scheduled the meeting and that  cost was a factor as well.

Of greater importance last night, though, were the residents' concerns about what would become of the approximately 44 acres off Bloomingdale Avenue, for which the preliminary site plan calls for a 158,800- square-foot shopping center building — "including building and garden center" — on roughly 24 acres.

The preliminary site plan, on display at the community center, notes also that another 23,000 square feet would be set aside for three restaurants, a bank and another retail building. Also noted was an apartment complex designed for 261 units.

"We met about 10 of us two months ago and now we have more than 400 people here tonight," Dan Grant, a CAN-DO organizer said. "In two months time we can double that."

"You didn't need the meeting tonight to get my attention," Higginbotham said at the meeting's end. "But you got my attention."

Higginbotham stressed at the meeting that site plans are due from the developer some time in mid- to-late August, and that without that submittal, the developer would have to start the approval process anew.

"If this company does not give the county the final pans then this doesn’t go further," Higginbotham said. "Right now all we have is a skeletal structure to speculate on."

The development as it stands now is a far cry from the "Winthrop-like" proposal Higginbotham said Hillsborough County commissioners had been sold on earlier on in the zoning approval stage. Higginbotham showed slides of that proposed development at last night's meeting.

George T. May IV, speaking with "two hats," as a Bloomingdale resident and as a representative of the Bloomingdale Homeowners Association, asked if the developer does not submit final plans that look like the slide displayed June 10, "can you not say, 'No go?' "

"That's a good question," Higginbotham said.

"I don't know where the legal basis is for that," he added. "That's certainly a valid point and I will bring that up in the morning."

Speaker Elizabeth Belcher had asked that the slide to be taken down, after she approached the microphone, calling it, "a fraud." Attendees shouted out that it should remain, to keep the contrast in view.

Higginbotham alluded to the slide, again in his closing remarks, and also to the residents' contention that what they are fighting is a 158,800- square-foot Walmart.

"I have to deal with facts and the facts that I have right now doesn’t give me anything to say it’s Walmart," Higginbotham said. "Commonsense says it's leaning that way. Yeah, and I’ve got commonsense its leaning that way, but I don’t have anything in writing. There’s a staff member who, I don’t know what his status is with the county now, but he said this is a Walmart when there was nothing in writing about his."

Added Higginbotham: "If we have to go back and find a way to right wrongs we will do that."

At that, the commissioner got a rousing round of applause.

Organizers said they distributed 2,500 fliers about the meeting over the weekend to ensure a strong turnout Monday night at the Brandon Community Center on Sadie Street. Selected speakers took turns asking questions noted in a packet of "talking points." Other speakers stood up as well, including those who praised CAN-DO and its mission.

Among them was Jim Fluhart, who said he represented the 1,154 homes and 2,234 people of the River Hills community in Valrico. "River Hills will stand behind them if they can't reach resolution," Fluhart told Higginbotham.

Higginbotham now is "very aware of the tsunami of public will, of public opinion against this project," Bloomingdale resident Maurice Cecchini said as the meeting drew to an end. "This [meeting] place is five miles away, has 450 seats, and we almost packed it in, in the middle of a thunderstorm. Even the organizers know this was far more successful than anyone envisioned."

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Check back for more Patch coverage of the June 10 meeting.

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RELATED COVERAGE:

• Higginbotham Vows To Hear All Big-Box Questions Tonight (June 10)

• Bloomingdale Big-Box Meeting at Brandon Recreation Center Tonight (June 10)

• Higginbotham to Bloomingdale: Let's Meet on Big Box

• Residents React to Commissioners' Bloomingdale Big-Box Stance

• Commissioners Say Plans for Bloomingdale Big Box Out of Their Hands

• Residents Flock to Big-Box Meeting at Bloomingdale Church

• Neighbors Rally Against Bloomingdale Big-Box Development

• 'No Bloomingdale Big Box' Event Set for Rush-Hour Traffic (includes reader comments)

• Opposition Preps for Big-Box Development Protest

• Bloomingdale Residents Continue To Fight Big-Box Development (includes link to a petition that as of June 11 has garnered 1,232 signatures)
  

• Higginbotham Fields Big-Box Development Question (video and reader comments posted at Brandon Patch)

• Commissioner Answers Big-Box Development Question (video and comments posted at Bloomingdale-Riverview Patch)