An inside look at Tallahassee’s midtown debacle
By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida
The story of last week’s Thomasville Road controversy started 15 years ago.
But the key date was, believe it or not, Nov. 9, 2019, when a small group of people unwittingly set into motion the series of events that culminated with a community-wide uproar.
Before we get there, let’s start with some background.
When vision collides with common sense
About 15 years ago, a committee of local residents set out to make Midtown Tallahassee a more livable, walkable, and vibrant place. These well-intentioned volunteers came up with a grand plan that sounded like something anyone would support – spacious sidewalks, lush landscaping and vibrant public spaces aimed at boosting economic development.
But a funny thing happened on the way to actual implementation. It turns out, what the local bureaucracy thought was appropriate public engagement and communication, actually resulted in just 30 people deciding the future fate of Midtown.
And what those 30 people chose was not just wildly unpopular, it was viewed as openly hostile to businesses and to workers who commute through one of the city’s most vital arteries.
Most critically, the conversion of Thomasville Road to one-way traffic for two years — a move that could cripple businesses — was never disclosed to the very property owners with whom local government was negotiating for right of way access. As a result, business owners only recently learned about a change that could devastate their livelihoods.
In fact, the two-year, one-way plan doesn’t appear in any documents reviewed by Red Tape Florida.
Not in the Midtown placemaking committee. Not in any documents of the Capital Regional Transportation Planning Authority (CRPTA). Not in Blueprint. Not in either the Tallahassee City Commission or Leon County Commission.
Some Midtown property owners only found out after they had negotiated the sale of their property rights. Heartbreakingly, multiple business owners shared that their employees started asking last week if their jobs are in jeopardy because of the plan.
While Friday’s decision by FDOT to kill the Blueprint Midtown placemaking plan was welcomed by most in Tallahassee, it almost didn’t happen.
Red Tape Florida has learned that even the office of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis became engaged on the issue, making it clear to all stakeholders that Blueprint-proposed changes to Thomasville Road were a non-starter.
Here is Red Tape Florida’s inside story of how a Tallahassee “placemaking” project collided head on with common sense.
From idea to implementation
The Midtown Action Plan – which became a part of the Blueprint process — was the product of discussion that began as early as 2009. A working group was formed, consisting of heads of local business and neighborhood associations, private business owners and two retailers. Sadly, the two retailers have since gone out of business.
The plan that resulted from this effort is filled with aesthetic and brand improvements to the area which encompasses part of the Thomasville Road and N. Monroe corridors, such as murals, colorful planters, “xeriscaping” and such.
Then the plan moved into an implementation phase. For years, elements of the plan materialized in small increments, such as the North Monroe/Lake Ella pedestrian crossing.
However, initial references to Thomasville Road were vague and the plan initially only spoke only in broad generalities.
By 2019, some specifics were taking shape and a communications plan was implemented. Blueprint, in collaboration with CRPTA, held a public meeting at the Tallahassee Senior Center on November 9 and asked attendees to vote on three options for changes to Thomasville Road in Midtown.
Options 1 and 2 both eliminated the turn lane and had minor differences with regards to sidewalks. Option 3 kept the turn lane, except it converted to a median where there is no place to turn.
There were 49 total votes. That’s less than 2 ten thousandths of the county’s 2019 population of just over 293,000 residents. Option 2 — eliminating the turn lane — was the “winner” with just 30 votes.
Did commissioners understand the vote?
Those 30 people voting at the senior center ultimately led to the solution that was approved by the CRTPA board, which included three Tallahassee City Commissioners (Jeremy Matlow, Curtis Richardson and Dianne Williams-Cox) and four Leon County Commissioners (Bryan Desloge, Kristin Dozier, Nick Maddox and Rick Minor)
But what presentation was shown to the CRTPA board that led to its approval on Oct. 19. 2020?
Well, let’s look at two consecutive slides. First, a slide showing how many people were engaged in the process.
While 883 people were reportedly engaged in the public process, the vast majority of those were from a survey that didn’t clearly include the elimination of the turn lane on Thomasville Road as an option. It also remains unclear how many “unique” participants this entails – that is, were there repeat attendees?
Now, here is the next slide commissioners on the CRTPA would have seen:
See that 61 percent number? Well, remember the vote at the senior center? 30 votes for Option 2, divided by 49 total votes equals … you guessed it … 61 percent. One has to wonder if commissioners thought that 61 percent of the total number of people engaged in the process supported eliminating the turn lane, rather than just 30 people (note: Blueprint literature does not mention whether other stakeholders were surveyed on those three specific options).
Blueprint board buried in paperwork
Next stop for the Midtown plan was the Dec. 10, 2020, meeting of the Blueprint IA board (made up of all five city commissioners and all seven county commissioners).
The Midtown plan appeared in what is called “consent” — a block of items that are approved together, usually unanimously without any discussion. The 595-page Blueprint agenda included 62 pages of information on the Midtown placemaking plan. References to the elimination of the turn lane were on pages 110 and 112. There was no mention of the road becoming one way for the two years of work on the project.
The minutes show that the consent package, including the Midtown placemaking plan, were approved 12-0 without discussion of the plan.
Businesses Left in the Dark
The next major development in the project seems to be September of 2024, when property owners along Thomasville Road received a letter about right of way acquisition. The letter included the same literature and renderings about eliminating the left turn lane.
But it did not include any mention – none – of Thomasville Road becoming one-way for two years. In fact, there is no mention of that reality in any Blueprint literature reviewed by Red Tape Florida. And, of the four business owners contacted by Red Tape Florida, none knew of the “one way for two years” plan until the last week or two.
It should also be noted that there does not appear to be any media coverage of the plan to eliminate the turn lane and at least two business owners on the impacted stretch of Thomasville Road did not know about that facet of the project until just a couple of weeks ago.
For perspective, here is how Blueprint describes its public engagement policy:
Did FDOT save the day?
So, where does the Florida Department of Transportation come in?
The Blueprint project was initially aligned with a planned Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) repaving project. The idea was to complete both projects simultaneously, along with utility maintenance.
But, ultimately, all parties must agree to the entire scope, including the Blueprint plan. Put another way, as FDOT officials made it clear to multiple attendees during the March 4 open forum on the project: “It’s our road.”
FDOT officials were already strongly hinting to some in the overwhelmingly opposed-to-the-new-plan March 4 crowd that the state would likely reject the plan, given the level of opposition. Three days later, they made it official.
To FDOT’s further credit, in the days before the public meeting, Project Manager Travis Justice and his team took steps to inform Midtown businesses by proactively visiting them to alert them about the impact of the project and make them aware of the public meeting.
FDOT was concerned there hadn’t been adequate communication.
Where do we go from here?
It will be interesting to see how city and county commissioners deal with the fallout from this meeting. Red Tape Florida has learned that more than one commissioner has expressed frustration that Blueprint so badly missed the public’s wishes when it comes to this plan. Blueprint apparently went to some lengths to engage the public, but why aren’t they getting a true sense of what the community wants? What other decisions have been made with incomplete or inaccurate community input?
For now, when it comes to Thomasville Road, FDOT has bailed out the community and prevented Blueprint from taking a wrong turn.