Title
Porters Neighborhood Improvements – SW 3rd Street GMP (B)
Explanation
The Porters community is an important intown neighborhood and one of Gainesville’s oldest residential areas. It is located adjacent to the Central Business District, the Power District, University Heights, Innovation Square, and Depot Park. Despite the community’s historic significance and its prime location to both established and upcoming elements within the city’s urban core, the neighborhood has struggled with disinvestment and blighted conditions.
In order to address these challenges, the CRA, City, and GRU have identified Porters as a candidate for a variety of capital improvements infrastructure projects. GRU established a strategic initiative to underground utilities in the neighborhood, identifying the SW 3rd Street corridor as an undergrounding project. Additionally, PWD began exploring potential infrastructure improvements with Porters, and also identified SW 3rd Street as a priority corridor. In 2007, the CRA assumed a major role in coordinating the implementation of Porters improvements. The CRA worked with a multi-agency team of CRA, City, and GRU staff to coordinate strategies and move plans for infrastructure improvements from concept to reality. This team considered a number of corridors and infrastructure needs within the Porters community when identifying potential projects. DRAB and neighborhood residents also provided input on potential projects.
For a number of logistical reasons, the community, PWD, GRU, and the CRA identified SW 3rd Street as the best candidate project for initial infrastructure improvements within Porters. Once this decision was made, the CRA worked to organize a scope for infrastructure improvement along the corridor. The project scope extends from Depot Avenue to SW 4th Avenue and will include the construction of brick sidewalks throughout the entirety of the corridor (including upgrades for code compliance and ADA accessibility is...
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