2 min read April 2023 — In an interview with Invest:, Denise Sanderson, director of economic development and housing for the City of Clearwater, talked about the office’s focus on the U.S. 19 corridor and their efforts to inspire developers to invest in the Tampa Bay region. Sanderson explained that despite the challenges posed by COVID, the response from developers has been overwhelming, and the corridor is now poised to become an employment-centric destination.
What have been some of the milestones and highlights for your office from the past 12 months?
We are focused primarily on the U.S. 19 corridor. We wanted to begin this project pre-pandemic, but COVID threw us a curveball. We decided now is the time to move forward and really want to inspire those who may be interested in the Tampa Bay region to see U.S. 19 in Clearwater as the next great place to be. The responses we have gotten from developers have been overwhelming and exceeded all expectations in terms of numbers and quality. We are positioned well to accommodate high-net-worth investors and we are ready to partner on those opportunities. The corridor was formerly a commercial corridor, and now it is poised to be an employment-centric destination.
How are you addressing Downtown Clearwater’s housing needs?
We are blessed to have a community redevelopment agency in our downtown core that gives us certain tools we might not otherwise have available to us. When we look at the downtown, we are anchored by some significant companies like KnowBe4, a global leader in cybersecurity awareness and training whose founder is committed to the downtown. We also have FrankCrum, a staffing company that continues to grow and other tech-centered businesses and coworking spaces. We are focused on being that partner that can deliver a lifestyle and amenity-rich downtown that is attractive to businesses and residents. We are hoping to break ground next year on 173 affordable and workforce housing units to support commercial development. We are trying to be strategic in identifying those areas where it is appropriate for high-density residential to be located, and are working on some code changes to bring to the council to incentivize the development of class A office space and even denser residential development.
Have you seen intentional effort from municipalities to work with developers to enable more of this development?
COVID is a tremendous example of why we have to and why it is necessary. Developers have to mitigate risk. If you are not a partner that can help them, then you will not get the project done. We’re working on putting the pieces together for our developers to mitigate the risk profile, so they can move forward confidently and quickly.
What strategies do you have in place to build up the workforce?
We get federal and state funds to support affordable and workforce housing, and we leverage private investment. We will never be able to build our way out of the need for affordable housing so we are about to embark on a study with a consultant to conduct a city-wide analysis on housing of all types. We are talking about naturally occurring affordable housing all the way to luxury homes. It will help us to understand who is in the community, their cost burden and so on. Luckily, there are a lot of resources to do that. This will lead up to a workshop with elected officials to help them understand recommended solutions in context with our economic development objectives. If we wish to attract people and businesses, we need to understand the factors that drive their decision-making processes. Understanding our housing inventory and future needs will help us to have a more informed conversation with policymakers and the community at large.
What is your outlook and top priorities for the city in the near term?
In the near term, we have talked quite a bit about the U.S. 19 corridor, the Amphitheater and Coachman Park — all of which are catalytic because of the investment they represent and the activity that they will create. We have growing confidence that we will be able to move forward with some significant projects that are mixed-use and multi-phased. We are sure there will be more catalytic investments to go along with that. Our industrial area is comprised of both incorporated and unincorporated lands, which can be difficult for infrastructure improvements, so we are working with the county to identify where improvements are needed in order to redevelop the area. It really is about creating a sense of place in this industrial complex that is robust. We hope to protect our large and diverse manufacturing industry in this county, so by collaborating to support significant change, we believe it will become an attractive investment and lead to expansion of our thriving industrial sector.
For more information, visit:
https://www.myclearwater.com/My-Government/City-Departments/Economic-Development
