Maitland residents debate the fate of the city's downtown district

The citizens of Maitland are parked on a crucial issue regarding Maitland’s yet-to-be-developed downtown: Should the downtown center be a park where you sit on a bench and enjoy the open-air green space, or a parking garage where you park your car before strolling the streets’ new bustling retail shops?

The developer caught in the middle of the debate says the two don’t have to be mutually exclusive, but residents came out in droves to voice their opinions on one side or the other at Maitland’s Oct. 13 City Council meeting.

When the City Council put out a notice looking for developer bids to redevelop Maitland’s old city hall property in February, one of the suggestions put out by the Council was that developers consider the strong public sentiment in favor of leaving some or all of the property – which is now a parking lot – as open space. The proposal that came in from Frinfrock for Urban Redevelopment calls for a three-story parking garage built on the corner of Independence Lane and Horatio Avenue with retail, office and restaurant spaces lining the street-front exterior.

Scott Ryan, the representative for the Frinfrock project, said the development plans to incorporate an “activated park and plaza” space surrounding the building without encroaching on the existing passive parkland bordering city hall.

The majority of those in attendance supported the idea of increasing the density of the downtown core, and the proposed parking garage which would be necessary to support the growing number of visitors.

“We have enough parks,” resident Butch Charlan told the Council. “But what we don’t have enough of is frontage to put retail.”

Resident Gus Bobus Jr. urged the Council to capitalize on their campaign promises to help make the Maitland downtown a reality.

“[The residents of Maitland] did not vote you guys into office to get another park," he said.

But others protested that the old city hall land would be better utilized as a park, with retail built on other surrounding parcels. Resident Roxanne Johnson provided the Council with a petition signed by 813 Maitland residents supporting the idea of utilizing the old city hall site as a passive park.

Resident Brij Seth argued that the area surrounding city hall was always intended to be designated as parkland, and should be kept as such. He said that by having a centralized park downtown, it would increase the property value of the developments surrounding it.

The City Council hasn’t had their chance to vote on any of the three proposed downtown development projects, two of which are currently working their way through the city’s Planning & Zoning Commission and Development Review Committee. On Monday, the Council voted to update the city’s website with information regarding the proposed downtown development projects.