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Man Has Plan For City Hall

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By LAURA KINSLER

lkinsler@tampatrib.com

Published: October 11, 2008

DADE CITY - In the past two years, Wilton Simpson has been an engine to keep downtown Dade City's business district churning.

He has bought and renovated four vacant buildings, bringing an insurance office, doctors' offices and a restaurant to the courthouse square. Now Simpson has a plan to save city hall.

"I want to buy city hall, do a total renovation and lease it back to the city," Simpson said.

He estimates spending about $2 million to gut the 68-year-old building and modernize it, bringing it into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

"I want to make it energy efficient - a green building," he said.

While the deal could give Simpson a stable, long-term tenant, he said the primary motivation is to improve the health of downtown. "It would have to make economic sense," he said.
City leaders have been struggling to find a solution to the cramped, outdated building for a decade. In 2002, the city bought the former TECO building for $320,000 to expand city offices' meeting space, but it only added 5,300 square feet.

Plans to buy the former Wachovia Bank building at 14033 Eighth St. fell apart in 2006. The city had an option to buy the building, but couldn't come up with the $3 million it would take to buy and convert it to city offices.

Some city commissioners embrace Simpson's plan.

"I think it's an option we need to explore," Mayor Pro-Tem Steve Van Gordon said. "Wilton has a proven track record of renovating buildings in our community."

Such a project would call for "out-of-the-box" thinking, he said. There are a legal questions involving the sale of city-owned property, such as how it would be taxed and whether it would have to go through a public bid process.

"What's attractive about Wilton's proposal is that he wants to keep the historical significance of the building," Van Gordon said.

First-year City Commissioner Curtis Beebe called Simpson's plan a "cool" and "innovative" solution. "I love it in concept," he said. "I think it's a real creative way of solving the problem."

As a partner in the locally owned Florida Traditions Bank, Simpson said he wouldn't have trouble with the financing for the project.

Dade City, on the other hand, is strapped. City Manager William Poe said the city cannot afford to pay rent for city hall offices it owns.

"Legally, we could sell the building and lease it back," Poe said. "But the city doesn't have the money right now to do anything."

Reporter Laura Kinsler can be reached at (813) 865-4844.

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