Negotiations will begin for revitalization of 17 acres southeast of downtown

Gainesville city commissioners, acting as the Community Redevelopment Agency board, voted Monday to approve Baltimore, Maryland-based Cross Street Partners as developer for the city’s Power District.

Cross Street Partners is known for its relationship with the global fitness brand Under Armour and urban developments across the United States, said CRA manager Andrew Meeker.

Cross Street Partners’ plans include bringing a craft brewery, tech companies, restaurants, retailers, artist studios, space for live entertainment and a public market to 17 acres surrounding the John R. Kelly electrical power station between downtown and Depot Park.

Plans also show residential space, which includes 20 percent affordable rent units, 342 market-rate units, and 45 to 50 for-sale townhouses. A parking garage and an opportunity for future parking above the Rosa Parks Downtown Station also are proposed in the developer's plans.

Sweetwater Branch Creek, which runs underground through the area, would be brought up into the daylight from Southeast Fourth Avenue to Depot Avenue.

The CRA board directed staff to start negotiations with Cross Street Partners. The plans will go back to the CRA for approval, then to Gainesville Regional Utilities' Utility Advisory Board, and eventually back to city commissioners for a vote.

Commissioner Adrian Hayes-Santos said he is most excited by the affordable housing proposal. He said he believes Cross Street Partners has a good understanding of the city's needs.

“It’s the largest project the CRA has ever done,” he said.

Cross Street Partners was ranked the top candidate developer for the Power District redevelopment — a project that has been in the works for more than 15 years. The CRA evaluation committee determined it met criteria laid out by the CRA for the project, providing an estimated cost of public investment — $30 million — and timeline for the project, which could begin construction next fall.

1220G, a Gainesville-based developer and branch of Collier Companies, did not provide those numbers nor a timeline, he said. It didn’t include affordable housing, either, and that was something in Cross Street Partners' plan that intrigued CRA staff, Meeker said.

1220G’s development plan included only market rate housing and plans to redevelop all Power District buildings for adaptive reuse, which was not favored by the CRA because “some of the buildings have outlived their livable lives,” Meeker said. Cross Street plans to redevelop 21 percent of the district's current buildings and build the rest.

Meeker said approving the CRA’s recommendation is just the first step of many to get the project underway.

“We don't see this as the end,” he said. “We see this as a very exciting beginning to an exciting process.”