FSU College Town & Phase 2

College Town Phase 2

"So they discussed College Town during FSU's BoT meeting today. I provided some screen shots from pictures they showed during the presentation. They're screenshots so the quality isn't perfect.

1. All residential units are full. I believe they said all retail units are filled although they are still finalizing the lease of one. There is a backlog of interested residential and retail tenants.

2. America's Backyard should be opening in Spring 2014 sometime. The revised proposal should be getting approved shortly.

3. They made mention of an urban grocer (non-Boosters property) and pharmacy (Woodward) in the area that we know about already from this site. The pharmacy site lease isn't finalized yet but they are expecting it to be a 2-story, no drive-thru building that fronts the street in order to remain consistent with the rest of the areas urban feel.

4. Boosters owns 10-20 acres in the surrounding area which they are deciding on future uses.

5. President Barron and Boosters envision a "Madison Mile" going from Doak Campbell to the Civic Center along Madison Street.

6. The plans for Phase II aren't finalized but they have a good idea of what they're going to put in and where. It appears it will include a residential building, two other buildings (not sure if entirely retail or what) and two parking garages. It will also extend Lorene Street from St. Augustine to Madison and connect at Gaines by the Stone Valley Way intersection. I think this is what was meant in the O.P. in this thread instead of a Collier Street extension. This would be consistent with FSU's proposal for part of the Blueprint penny-tax money to be spent on sidewalk improvements around campus to help with the connectivity to the surrounding community. One of the proposed sidewalks is where this proposed Lorene extension is.

Each garage will be adjacent to one of the residential buildings. The residential building is expected to be 6 stories. The two other buildings will be 3-4 stories. There may be a diner/cafe type eatery on the ground level of at least one of the garages.

7. They said they are exceeding their revenue goals.

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I think I covered everything. If you wish to watch the presentation yourself it's here: http://learningforlife.fsu.edu/bot/sept13_13.htm . It starts somewhere around 3:10:00 to 3:15:00."

"So there are 3 slides with fine print on them:

* The one that's the aerial over College Town/Gaines (marked slide 1 in their presentation) is simply showing other properties in gray where residential and retail units are going in. It lists the number of beds as well. (The Block, Deck, Catalyst, 601 Copeland, etc)

* The slide marked 2, showing the likely layout of Phase II, lists the retail square footage as well as the number of parking spaces needed for both phases of the College Town project and how many are actually going to be built. So they estimate 1,137 parking spaces are needed and 1,105 will be provided. Phase I is about 100,000 square feet of retail (including Urban Outfitters) and both phases in total will be about 160,000 square feet.

* The third slide, marked 7, mentions how the old IM fields will remain for student use. The fields will be upgraded for drainage as well as the restroom plaza/pavillion improved on the north side of the grounds. It mentions signage, benches, street lights, and trees to line the fields all being installed. Mentions the game day parade going through the fields on the way to the stadium."

FSU College Town Phase 2

"On Thursday, Seminole Boosters had a meeting with some media to discuss the upcoming plans for FSU College Town Phase 2.
A lot of specifics with regards to vendors were not shared, but vision was explained. The area of the old haunted house on Gaines St. will be Phase II. A combination of condos and retailers will be going up in its place.
Some of the new additions in the area will include a CVS with a pharmacy (along Woodward), a boutique hotel, a grocer, etc. An Urban Outfitters is already going into the area.
Also, a 500-car garage is expected to go in. Proposal to open by kickoff of 2015 season.
Places like Madison Social, Cantina, and Brooklyn Water Bagel have already found success with Phase I.
Here are a couple drawings/photos explaining the development of the area.
Photo of where the Old Haunted House is, an aerial view of College Town, and photo of the original drawn up plans, "

"The meeting was much more interesting from a business perspective than an athletics perspective:
-- In general, the project has exceeded financial expectations. "We're exceeding all our projections," Seminole Boosters CEO Andy Miller said.
-- To that end, the Madison Social manager attended the meeting and said that they're thrilled with how things have gone so far.
-- Miller emphasized the idea of CollegeTown being a "hub" for FSU fans before and after sporting events, especially football.
-- "College football and athletics have become an event," he said. "There has to be more than a football game - It has to be an experience."
-- There will be a new CVS store on the corner of Woodward and Pensacola.
-- They're also in talks with a major grocery store chain and a "boutique" hotel, but wouldn't reveal names until leases are signed.
-- Said that their pitch to potential tenants is that there are 10,000 students living in or within walking distance of the immediate area.
-- And big news to long-time Tallahassee natives, the Haunted House on Gaines Street will be going away. It will become a tailgate deck where people can rent space and do their thing before going to the game. There's a mockup of that above.
-- There are talks of implementing wireless internet access at Doak Campbell Stadium for games, but it sounds like that's still in the developmental stages.
-- There was talk of developing CollegeTown into sort of a "Madison Mile" stretch which includes stores, restaurants, bars, etc., from the end of the strip (Madison Social area) up to the Civic Center.:"








Seminole Boosters plan for Collegetown, hope to transform Tallahassee

"Historically, Tallahassee has been known for three things: Florida State football, the state Capitol and its universities. People visited the self-described “sleepy, Southern town” to watch Seminoles football or to meet with state legislators to voice a concern.
However, those were weekend, or maybe even day, trips. Whenever anyone came to Tallahassee to stay, it was for one reason—a college degree. With three four-year colleges within walking distance of one another, the greatest long-term attraction to Tallahassee has always been higher education.

The problem is, once graduated, many former students leave in search of an urban business market, like Jacksonville, Orlando, Atlanta or even Miami. Tallahassee’s greatest exports are intellectual minds. What leaves with them are the new ideas fundamental to economic and cultural growth and vitalization.

Because of this, Tallahassee has been stuck in stasis, unable to grow up. The city has recently stagnated. A solution has arisen to this problem, though, one that is dedicated to evolving Tallahassee’s identity and urbanizing the community. It’s called Collegetown.

The Other 358 Days

Andy Miller is the CEO of Seminole Boosters and a man who, as one colleague put it, “has a zillion ideas all the time.” Six years ago, the Boosters had acquired land surrounding Doak S. Campbell stadium following the University Center renovation to accommodate the increasing parking needed for Boosters and fans. When Miller viewed the property, he saw more than a glorified parking lot for FSU football fans on game day. For seven days a year, the land teemed with people, but otherwise the property was a ghost town.

So in early 2008, Miller approached Will Butler, head of Real Estate InSync, the Seminole Boosters’ real estate asset management firm, and asked to develop a better utilization strategy for the property. Initially, discussion focused on whether to market to a third-party or to foster the real estate themselves. But once the City of Tallahassee and Leon county dedicated major resources to revitalizing and redeveloping the area surrounding Booster property, particularly the focus placed on renovating nearby Gaines Street, Miller and Butler joined in the transformation of the area that serves as Tallahassee’s entryway.

“It’s kind of the front door when people come from the airport, that’s the first impression they get of Tallahassee,” Miller said. “That was a big deal to us: to create a gateway into the city that the first impression you get on the Capitol, and Tallahassee and the university is something that makes you want to be there and not leave.”

Their objectives during planning were simple: enhance the FSU football game day experience, generate interest for visitors to Tallahassee and transform the long-ignored land around the stadium into a cultural center for the city.

College Towns and Collegetown

Will Butler, along with Patrick Hodges who served as the lead on the masterplanning team, set out to visit iconic college towns across the nation and identify what made those markets as vibrant and successful as they were. They studied towns like Athens, Ga., Chapel Hill, N.C., Ann Arbor, Mi. and Boulder, Co., and what they discovered was surprising.

“Even in the deepest depths of the recession, the college town markets were still as strong as any,” Butler said. “People were still going to college, and even people that were about to graduate, looked around and said, ‘not a lot happening, maybe I’ll go back and get an extended degree.’ There’s still money being pumped into those markets.”

What Butler, Hodges and the rest of the masterplanning team learned through various studies was that young people are attracted to more urban environments, where shops, retail stores and restaurants are all within walking distance of one another and the culture is unique to the area. The problem is that Florida State is one of only two major universities in the U.S. not within three and a half hours of a major metropolitan area, according to Butler. There is nothing urban around.

The team began to form the foundation for a complex called Collegetown, designed to serve as the central borough for Tallahassee and its currently disconnected neighborhoods. What they’re trying to do, as Butler describes it, is “build a city within a city.” Not only do they want to attract outsiders to stay for a longer time frame, they want to retain the newcomers they already have.

“Tallahassee lacks economic diversification. Most kids love going to school here but when they finish school, they don’t necessarily want to leave. They leave because they have to go and find a job,” Miller admitted. And that’s a problem for the Seminole Boosters as they want to keep as many young FSU fans in the area as possible.

However, over the past 15 years, state offices have relocated to the southeast satellite location of the Capital Circle Office Complex at Southwood, reducing the historically strong political influence of downtown Tallahassee. That, in conjunction with the revitalization of Gaines Street and the development of Collegetown, has Tallahassee nearing a true urbanization tipping point.

If You Build It, They Will Come

The goal when acquiring tenants for Collegetown was to establish an organic, distinctive market that would appeal to college students, the demographic Butler has identified as their “strike zone,” as well as providing a family-friendly environment for visitors. In other words, they didn’t want to be another Midtown or Tennessee Strip, both bar scene hotspots.

Led by Alan Hooper, the lead developer of Collegetown, the team recruited two different types of tenants: those with an FSU connection (generally Florida State alumni) and successful retail or restaurants in college markets who wanted to open another location. The goal was to find urban stores that embrace the unique atmosphere and identity of Tallahassee.

A few have stood out from the rest—Recess, a second-floor bar that has caught many’s attention with its rooftop pool, and Madison Social, a mixed-social entertainment restaurant with retractable garage doors and top-class cocktails, come to mind—but the owners of the restaurants care more about promoting a brand through the sum of Collegetown than the individual parts.

“We want to work together to build Collegetown as a brand,” said Matt Thompson, a part-owner at Madison Social. “It’s really important to us.”

However, there are two entities that have legitimized Collegetown’s potential to revolutionize Tallahassee. The first is America’s Backyard, a company originally located in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., who will provide live entertainment 150-200 nights annually.
“When I was a kid I used to come up here to see concerts in Tully Gym,” said Patrick Hodges. “We had Fleetwood Mac, we had Led Zeppelin, we had Spirit, we had Black Sabbath. We paid a student fee to see them. Well, we’re going to get those kind of big-name, contemporary acts, not the old stuff.”

The other is Urban Outfitters, a store that when it announced its addition to Collegetown, excited the other owners as much as the Tallahassee fashionistas. Both Butler and Thompson described the retailer as a “game-changer” for the process.

Urban Outfitters had initially looked at Midtown as a possible destination, but when they heard about Collegetown, and discovered the old, industrial Duraprint building the store will be located in, they decided it was an opportunity they couldn’t pass up.

College Kids No More

While Tallahassee may not transform over night into a modern-day Metropolis, that’s not the goal of Collegetown. Their masterplan spans 10 years into the development of their property as well as the urbanization of the city. Collegetown is just Phase I of that plan.

The group hopes to establish Tallahassee as a more legitimate destination spot. Visitors won’t want to come only for the big-name football games like Florida, Clemson or Miami, but for smaller games like Idaho because, as Miller hopes, they love spending time in Tallahassee.

Whatever happens, Tallahassee is sure to see drastic changes within the next 5-10 years. FSU football, state politics and universities won’t be the draw to the city, but the city itself will be the main recruiting tool for outsiders. In a town full of college kids, Tallahassee is about to become an adult.

“I want to see us finally grow up,” Will Butler said. “I tell a lot of folks I feel like we’ve been a teenager so long, I’m tired of hearing my voice crack. It’s time. It is our time. It’s FSU’s time. It’s FSU’s time to be one of top 25 public universities in the country. It’s the city of Tallahassee’s time to move into the next tier where it’s a true, vibrant, energetic, creative place.”