Pinellas County Seeks Ideas for Downtown Palm Harbor

PALM HARBOR, FL – Palm Harbor has all the things that small-town America is looking to recapture: a walkable community with a tight urban grid, buildings close to the street, homes with porches and convenient shopping and services.

Pinellas County recognized this in December 2001 and adopted the Downtown Historic Palm Harbor Master Plan in order to keep this unincorporated community’s central hub from losing its character. Fifteen years on, the county is looking to revisit the master plan to continue to set a course for Palm Harbor.

Right now, area residents have been invited to share their thoughts through a short online survey on what gives downtown Palm Harbor its identity as part of the process to update the district’s master plan. The survey can be found on the Pinellas County Planning Department’s website at www.pinellascounty.org/planning/openpinellas.

Pinellas County has also scheduled an open house about the master plan for Tuesday, Jan. 26 from 6:30 to 9 p.m. in the cafeteria of Palm Harbor University High School, 1900 Omaha St.

According to the Pinellas County Planning Department, the features that make downtown Palm Harbor a viable community include:

• An identifiable, eclectic main street along Florida Avenue
• A walkable street pattern
• A mix of residential and neighborhood commercial uses close to recreation facilities, like the Pinellas Trail and Pop Stansell Park
• A historic district designation
• A strong school system
• Neighborhood businesses and resources that support the community

Many of the initial recommendations from the original master plan have been completed while some are in progress and others remain incomplete. The county is interested in reviewing the remaining recommendations and considering new ones.

The currently adopted Downtown Historic Palm harbor Master Plan can be viewed at https://pd-oth.s3.amazonaws.com/production/uploads/portals/255/forum/issue/4206/issue_asset/asset/5806/DHPHMP__1_.compressed.pdf.

Photography provided courtesy of Pinellas County Communications Department