The Gainesville Development Review Board voted Tuesday to approve the plans for Alachua County’s new civil courthouse, more parking at Oak Hall School and a KEDPLASMA location coming to SW 13th Street.
The courthouse approval is the final in a series of site plans to come before the board in the past few months, including for a parking garage and an energy plant. These new constructions will go onto the same site at the Stephan P. Mickle Criminal Courthouse to create a unified court complex.
The civil courthouse approved Tuesday will be five stories and 87,400 square feet, but it’s not a standalone building. Instead, it’s a large addition to the criminal courthouse and will share a public entrance and security checkpoint. The new addition will join the south side of the current criminal courthouse.
Clay Sweger, agent for eda consultants, said that while the approvals were staggered going through city review, the construction will all happen at the same time and last around 18 to 24 months. The project is estimated to cost $70 million for the civil courthouse, parking garage and a chilled water central energy plant on site.
Alachua County has already started plans for using the soon-to-be-empty civil courthouse next to Bo Diddley Plaza, along with future plans for its administrative building also on the plaza.
Oak Hall School
Oak Hall School received approval to build a new parking lot on the southwest corner of its property off Tower Road.
The school already uses the area for student parking, but applicants said they want to formalize the area and make safety improvements, like a large enough turnaround for emergency vehicles.
The project proposed 126 new spaces but needed approval since it’s more than code allows.
Staff recommended approval as long as the applicant finalized the final portion of its tree mitigation. Several trees, planted in 2005 for another mitigation requirement, will need to be removed.
The same tree species will be planted in the area when the construction finishes, but a heritage live oak tree can’t be mitigated with a replanting, requiring a payment instead.
The board voted 4-1 to approve the plan.
KEDPLASMA
KEDPLASMA plans to demolish the vacant City College building at 2400 SW 13th St. to construct its own facility.
The plans would move the parking to the rear and place the building along the road, but a Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU) water main along the road requires a 10-foot separation. That separation would place the new building beyond the allowed setback of 27 feet by four feet.
Tuesday’s agenda item asked the board to grant an exemption for the extra four feet, and the board approved it unanimously.
Staff said future redevelopment in this area might run into the same issue.
I guess the City has plenty of money?
Hey, Kurt. Just to clarify, none of the three approved projects will be funded by the city of Gainesville. Because the site locations are within city limits, the projects must go through the city’s development process for approval. The courthouse projects are funded through Alachua County.
Why can’t the heritage oak at Oak Hall be saved? I think the city and county are cutting down too many trees.
I totally agree!
I’m on the DRB and voted to approve the plan. The oak was in the middle of the new drive and the plan would not be feasible if it was kept. Also, the tree was planted during a previous Oak Hall mitigation project and (I believe) just met the heritage threshold. The whole project also will improve drainage, since neighbors to the south expressed that they currently have flooding problems. The 40 foot buffer between the lot and property lines to the south will have more native shrubbery added according to city codes, this is to block any headlights and reduce noise.
If you want to make your voice heard, we heavily encourage and welcome public comment at DRB meetings on the last Tuesday of each month at 6:30 at city hall! You can also email and submit a letter (which we all actually read) if you cannot make it in person.