My Clearwater City Planning Director: Imagine Clearwater Has Potential to Reposition the City With the City Council’s February adoption 62 MyClearwater of Imagine Clearwater, the city’s waterfront and bluff master plan, Clearwater is now in the implementation stage of an important development project that promises to transform the city’s waterfront and Coachman Park. Michael Delk, the city’s director of the Planning and Development Department, answered a few questions from the city’s Public Communications staff about the City Council’s approval of Imagine Clearwater and the next steps. Q: How does it feel being the city’s Planning and Development director at the time the City Council adopted the Imagine Clearwater plan? A: It is very rewarding. From a planning standpoint, planners live to make a positive difference. To see things like this that can get approved, there’s hardly anybody probably any more anxious than me to see the shovel turn the dirt and see us really start to implement and build these things. That’s the beautiful part of this effort, when you can see things that you’ve worked on for years finally begin to happen. Q: Now that it has been approved, where are we in the process of the Imagine Clearwater plan? A: We are commencing the implementation stage. So we will be talking to City Council about moving forward, acquiring the architecture, design and engineering services to actually reconstruct the park, activate the Clearwater Main Library and design a new pavilion for the entertainment venue. And then permit and construct those improvements that are related to the actual implementation of Imagine Clearwater. Q: What did the public get behind in the meetings that were held with the consultant teams of HR&A Advisors, Sasaki and Kimley-Horn? A: The public supported greatly expanding the green, the overall size of (Coachman) Park. At the same time, supporting a great deal of activation of the waterfront. Things that will invite families to spend time there with things like splash pads, facilities for children to play in, playground areas and quiet estuary areas. The public supported substantial reactivation of the edge of the park, which is so important to successful parks. The plan includes the opportunity for mixed-use development along Osceola Avenue, which would activate the park, put eyes on the park. The plan accommodates a public walkway, a trail along the top of the bluff moving from north to south that will have spectacular views of the park and spectacular views of the waterfront. (It) provides the accessibility to the active edge of the park, the retail and the restaurants overlooking the park and waterfront, and tying in a reactivated library, which the public has already supported through referendum. Q: What comes with the implementation stage? A: That is going to be outside expertise: surveying, engineering, reconfiguration of the park, architecture, design, economic viability of usage that may or may not work well in the context of the library. There is a whole host of things that we will be engaged in.
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