Change is coming

City to break ground soon for ‘come alive in 2025’ projects

By St. Clair Murraine
Outlook Staff Writer

A lot of vertical movements is expected during the next two months on four developments that the city of Tallahassee is touting as projects that will “come alive in 2025.”

A Star Metro transit center on the Southside is projected to be one of the first completed next year. Groundbreaking is expected to take place this month. Adjacent to the transit center on the corner of Orange Avenue and South Meridian Street will be Orange Avenue Park.

The other projects are Tallahassee Police headquarters and a senior center. The TPD campus is being constructed at the intersection of Tharpe Street and MLK Boulevard, while the senior center will be built adjacent to Welaunee Boulevard in the Canopy Development.

The city has also disclosed plans to build Fire Station No. 17 on property near FAMU Way and Lake Bradford Road. Additionally, a Market District Park is in the works off Maclay Commerce Drive near Market Square Shopping Center and the Village Commons Shopping Center.

Those two projects are in the pipeline for 2026.

The Capital Outlook got details on the projects during a recent tour with City Manager Reese Goad and John Powell, director of construction for the city.

The projects have a combined budget or nearly $200 million. Most of that will be spent on the TPD headquarters, which could cost as much as $125 million.

“It’s just the good results of leadership by the City Commission,” Goad said, explaining how the projects came about. “It’s forward thinking, getting these projects ready to build. We are going to construct them and many of them will be done by the end of 2025, all at the same time.”

The projects are taking shape after a series of community engagement meetings over more than two years. Getting to the point where construction has started on the TPD campus has been contentious at times.

Back in  2018, when it was reported that the new police station will cost $46.5 million, the headquarters was projected to be located in the Southside Shopping Center. However, the city commission abandoned those plans in early 2019 after pushback from residents. 

Community input resulted in 68 recommended sites. The commission settled on the current location after the 29.5-acre property was purchased by the city in an auction.

The 137,000-square-foot headquarters building will be nestled on 12 acres, said Powell. 

The remaining property at the site, Goad said, will be uses for construction of 108 housing units on the northern side of the property.  Work is currently being done on a stormwater pond that will become part of the landscape.

An additional portion of the property that faces MLK could be used for commercial development, Goad said, depending on what the Commission decides.

Each of the projects will be built by different construction companies. They will offer sub-contract opportunities through the Office of Economic Vitality’s Minority, Women and Small Business Programs, Goad said.

The Orange Avenue Park, which is primarily a Blueprint project, and the transfer center, are expected to add to the quality of life on the Southside. The transfer center will feature eight bays for electric buses, while a four-car charging station will be located at the park.

The development will come at a time when work at Columbia Garden at South City is nearing the halfway point. That and the transfer station will bring an economic boost to the area, said City Commissioner Dianne Williams Cox.

“All of that is transformative,” said Williams Cox. “It brings a sense of pride. It makes people want a part and real excited to see new and exciting things are happening on the Southside of town.

 “People living in our city deserve to have an increase in the quality of life and a good economy. By having that new transit on the Southside means we can move them around without having to take them downtown. Folks can go wherever they need to go from that facility.”

The transfer center is the first that’s being built by the city since it opened CK Steele Plaza more than 35 years ago. The Southside location will make public transportation more convenient for residents of the area, Goad said.

“We know that the majority of our riders begin and end in our Southside area,” he said. “So, we want a direct connection here so that if they’re going to the hospital they can go straight from here. They don’t have to clear CK Steel. It creates greater efficiency.

“We have a lot of people that are going to travel to school, to work (and) to their appointments on the bus and we look for ways to make that better.”