Groundbreaking for Temple Terrace downtown project is set

There's good news to report to those who've been following and hoping the decade-old evolution of the city's downtown redevelopment project would one day come to fruition.

At Tuesday's city council meeting, Mike Vlass, principal of the project's master developer, Vlass Temple Terrace LLC, announced that the groundbreaking for construction on the project's first phase will be July 2.

The four-phase project will redevelop a 29-acre commercial parcel southeast of Bullard Parkway and 56th Street.

The announcement follows the developer's takeover of the property on July 1, 2009, and the pledged Phase 1 start date of no later than July 1, 2012.

The timeline to complete the first phase, set to start at the south end of the property boarded by Chicago Avenue, is slated to be before the end of the year.

The work will include re-grading the parking lot, revamping the Masque Community Theatre and other adjacent buildings and providing a major exterior facelift to the Sweetbay Supermarket façade in conjunction with the project's New Urbanism-style architecture.

The push for a completion date that is also well ahead of its promised timeline of July 1, 2014, Vlass said, was prompted by Sweetbay's need to have its work finished by early November, prior to the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.

There is also an urgency to relocate the post office from its present site on the property into the renovated Masque Theatre building. The theater group will eventually be housed in the redevelopment area's new Community Arts and Education building, which is on the drawing board to be built next year. In the meantime, developers are hoping to find a temporary on-site space for the theater.

Vlass said his development team, which consists of Michael J. Lant of M.J. Lant Developments, Mark Sneed of MTS Advisors and Inland Diversified Real Estate Trust, which recently joined the project, is funding the first phase on a cash basis.

"We're doing a lot of this on spec," Vlass said. "We think it will be such a great space that people will want to be part of it."

Mayor Joe Affronti, who has been involved in the project since its inception in early 2000, was elated by the news.

"On July 2 we'll be able to celebrate 10 years of hard work," he said.