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Published by former Mayor George Gardner January 2 2013
The Report is an independent publication serving our community.
Contributions are greatly appreciated. Click or mail to
George Gardner 57 Fullerwood Drive St. Augustine FL 32084
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New life for landmarks
Hamblen, Capt. Jack's, Spanish Street sites to change
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Landmark properties enter new life in the New Year with changes on King and Spanish streets and Anastasia Blvd.
Based on applications going before the city's Planning and Zoning Board Tuesday, January 8:
- The former Hamblen
 | | Art Moderne design for Mellow Mushroom |
Hardware building on King Street will be a convenience store - The former Capt. Jack's Restaurant site on Anastasia Blvd. will be a Mellow Mushroom restaurant
- A one-story former weapons museum on Spanish Street will be a new 2-story Spanish Colonial style building
The plan board session begins at 2 pm in the Alcazar Room at City Hall.
KMPN Investments, LLC will seek a Use by exception to allow alcohol sales at a proposed convenience store on the site of Hamblen Hardware, which closed its doors a year ago to end a business begun here in the late 1800s.
Architect and former City Commissioner Don Crichlow will seek approval to remove preserved trees as part of site development for a Mellow Mushroom restaurant of the former Capt Jack's site. The restaurant chain, begun in 1974 and "originators of Classic Southern Pizza," has locations primarily in the southeast, including Fleming Island and Jacksonville Beach.
And Contractor and former Mayor Len Weeks will seek a variance in side yard building setbacks for a new building, part of a rejuvenation of the Spanish/Hypolita streets area he plans.
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Coral facility
open house
An open house at the Galimore Center Wednesday, January 9 at 5 pm will outline plans for a coral cultivating facility at the end of Riberia Street and relocation of city owned horse stables for the facility.
Applied Coral Technologies, the brainchild of Alan Lowe of Palm Coast and operating out of Dominica, hopes to provide "The Coral Experience," a full water immersion Helmet Dive, and educational out-reach programs as well as the business of cultivating coral.
Image: Coral cultivating in Dominica
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Guidelines working
for Entry Corridors
Former Mayor Len Weeks' plan for Spanish Street follows architectural guidelines for historic preservation districts.
Weeks also pushed for development guidelines along the city's major entry corridors back in the 1990s; former Commissioner Don Crichlow was among city commissioners voting to make those guidelines law under Mayor George Gardner in the early 2000s.
 | | Spanish Street plan shows new construction adjacent to existing Bath Junkie |
"It's tricky, but doable," says Architect Crichlow of his Mellow Mushroom design in Art Moderne, the type of architecture best fitting the required "Florida Beachside" style dictated for Anastasia Blvd.
It's a style popular in the US from 1925 to around 1980.
Styles compatible with historic architecture are also outlined for the other two entry corridors: King Street and San Marco Avenue.
When those guidelines were made law, there was concern the city would be sued for taking private property rights, and a review panel was established to work out differences.
In the past decade of enforcement, only six objections have surfaced, and all were worked out without going to court.
Even giant 7-Eleven, moving forward with questionable plans to site a store and gas pumps at already congested May Street and San Marco Avenue intersection, is toeing the line with a store design harking back to the Mom and Pop era.
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City plans garage rate increase
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City officials plan to increase the Visitor Center parking facility all-day rate for ParkNow card holders from $1 to $3 in March, according to a St. Augustine Record report.
Assistant City Manager Tim Burchfield said the $1 rate, set along with  a $10 all-day fee for non-card holders in October 2011, was "to show people that the garage is easy to use.
"The $1 rate has been here long enough," he said. We basically subsidized parking at that rate, which cost us $11,000 to $12,000 a year."
The increase to $3 could support a larger goal - reaching an additional $1,050,000 the city had hoped for with the $10 fee for non-card holders - largely visitors.
City officials hoped to double the $1,301,972 annual revenue, the additional funds to cover payments toward the seawall project, Visitor Center remodeling into an exhibit hall, and the 450th commemoration.
Year-end figures weren't available due to the holiday closing, but third quarter stats showed that additional revenue running about 40% below projections.
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2013 - year of the Gilded Age
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Flagler College is geared up to go back 125 years.
After a search for original artifacts from the Hotel Ponce de Leon, visitors to a free "grand opening" January 12 on the 125th anniversary of today's National Historic Landmark can see a
vintage fire extinguisher, original menus, an original "American Riviera" book, the tropical tennis tournament trophy (miniature version of the city gates, on loan from the St. Augustine Historical Society), and a yachting trophy Dr. Andrew Anderson won in 1904.
Also on display (no sitting please) will be furniture such as chairs from the gay 90's bar and letter writing room, College Relations Director Laura Stevenson Dumas says.
The college plans a full year of events, beginning with an opening of the former hotel's ground floor interiors and grounds Saturday, January 12, 9:30 am to 2 pm.
Visit www.ponce125.com
Image: "Parlors of the Ponce de Leon Hotel," ca 1890. Glass negative by William Henry Jackson. Detroit Publishing Co.
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History's Highlight
Early colony 'degenerated into chaos'
2 years, 8 months, 7 days to St. Augustine's 450th anniversary
With Ponce de Leon's discovery of Florida in 1513, the flurry of exploratory voyages began.
Among them, in 1526, Don Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón, a wealthy colonial judge and slave trader, contracted with King Carlos V to explore and settle the area around present-day Winyah Bay, SC.
A member of the Superior Council in San Domingo, Vázquez discovered the Chesapeake Bay and was the first explorer to try to find a northwest passage from Europe to Asia.
 In mid-July, 1526, Vázquez with 600 mariners, soldiers, clergy, and doctors - departed Puerto Plata, Hispaniola (today's Dominican Republic) in six ships. Also on board were women, children, and African slaves.
They landed in the Santee-Winyah Bay area in early August. Based on information from native sources, the Spaniards believed they were on the border of Du-a-e, a land of gems, pearls, and tame herds of deer. Stories of this wealth gave rise to the legend of "Chicora," which influenced the location of later French and English colonies.
A survey of the area revealed few food resources and no natives, both essential to the colony Vázquez planned to establish. Exploring parties were dispatched, while work began to build a ship to replace their flagship lost on a shoal. This vessel, la Gavarra, built on the banks of the Río de Jordán (now the South Santee River), was the first ship known to be built in the continental U.S.
Based on his scout's reports, Vázquez moved his colony south. Evidence suggests that Vázquez's new site was near today's Sapelo Sound, GA. There, on September 29, 1526, he founded San Miguel de Gualdape, not far from the site of the city of Jamestown, built by the English fully eighty years later.
The late summer arrival of the colonists prevented planting crops. Short on food and unable to obtain it from the Guale, the Spaniards began to sicken and die. The colony degenerated into chaos. Seeing their opportunity, in October the slaves set fire to some of the colony's buildings under cover of night and staged a mass escape - the first recorded slave revolt in what is now the continental United States.
Vázquez was among the fatalities, and his San Miguel de Gualdape survived his death by only a few weeks. Of the original 600 who set out from Puerto Plata, some 150 survived to return to the Antilles. The Africans were resettled along the north Florida/south Georgia coast when Pedro Menendez de Aviles established the first successful European colony, San Agustin, in 1565.
St. Augustine Bedtime Stories - dramatic accounts of famous people and events in St. Augustine's history - in booklets designed for quick reads before bed. Information here. | |
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The St. Augustine Report is published weekly, with additional Reports previewing City Commission meetings as well as Special Reports. The Report is written and distributed by George Gardner, St. Augustine Mayor (2002-2006) and Commissioner (2006-2008) and a former newspaper reporter and editor. Contact the Report at gardner@aug.com |
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