What’s Happenin’ at TEAM Punta Gorda?

By Dave Charney, TPG Executive Assistant

The following is the first of three articles detailing the on-going activities of TEAM Punta Gorda

Friends have been asking, “What is TEAM Punta Gorda doing, now that the completed Citizens’ Master Plan 2005 (CMP) was given to both City and County government in June?” The answer: TEAM is busy, but not in ways visible to the public. In the spring we were in the public eye—hiring Urban Planner Jaime Correa, raising funds, holding a charrette, gaining public input, reaching out for support, enlisting members and including the public in every way we could imagine.

Now TEAM is working to ensure Citizens Master Plan 2005 is implemented. Our community deserves to have this plan’s pages open on the desks of city and county staff. The plan needs to guide the actions of developers and property owners. It needs to come to life.

Ahead is a detail process. It’s not glamorous and requires building relationships. Reviewing public or private development plans—particularly of smaller projects—does not grab headlines and community attention. But it is essential to ensuring that the Greater Punta Gorda is rebuilt according to the wishes of the citizens who helped create Citizens Master Plan 2005. If we heard anything from hundreds of involved citizens and civic leaders, it was that they wanted TEAM Punta Gorda to stay the course, to see that the plan became reality.

Here is a rundown of just a few of the activities we have undertaken since the CMP was formally presented to the citizens in June:

• TEAM Punta Gorda created a strategic plan in the early summer, with clearly identified goals and objectives, to guide our activities into the future. We then asked ourselves: is the organizational structure we used to create the plan still the best one for implementing it?  We decided it should be improved.  As a result we have a new Board of Directors, new roles (and in some cases new people) for the Leadership Team, and a new committee structure.

• TEAM staff so far has reviewed eight development projects proposed for downtown Punta Gorda, and will be making recommendations to City and County Government about each plan. We continue to retain Jaime Correa and Associates at our cost to review plans for compliance with the concepts of New Urbanism. Jaime has advised us closely on these projects and their “fit” into what Punta Gorda could become under the master plan. Among these development plans have been the new Hotel/Condo development on the waterfront at the site of the old Holiday Inn, the new City Marketplace, and a new Professional Center on Marion Avenue. TEAM Punta Gorda has supported some of these projects, negotiated modifications for others, and not supported a few because they do not conform to the basic tenets of the CMP. We expect to review many more projects in the future, all to assist the City and County government approval process.

• As part of the input needed by Correa and Associates for the master plan, TEAM hired aerial photographers to take digital pictures of the entire Punta Gorda area. Punta Gorda has never had such a detailed view of the City, but it does now. TEAM Punta Gorda has given these photos to the City at a cost to the TEAM of $8,000.

• One element of the master plan was to start a public trolley system connecting the various hubs within Greater Punta Gorda. Two TEAM members have used their own funds—and TEAM has supported their efforts—to create the Punta Gorda Trolley. It runs four afternoons a week connecting Fisherman’s Village, the Historic District, downtown and the Charlotte Regional Medical Center. Ridership is free, thanks in part to advertising paid by TEAM Punta Gorda and others. We hope this fledging route in time will grow into a public transportation system to serve citizens and visitors alike and reduce the need for automobiles for every transportation need.

In future articles we will continue to outline the on-going activities of TEAM Punta Gorda.