City 'gets the conversation going' about vision for a new downtown Fort Walton Beach

FORT WALTON BEACH — The possibility of creating a higher intensity downtown zoning district and an update on the city’s long-proposed “around the mound” traffic reconfiguration highlighted Tuesday’s city-hosted town hall meeting on its downtown master plan.

The plan helps guide long-term growth in downtown Fort Walton Beach. Created in partnership with the Matrix Design Group of Niceville, the plan first appeared in draft form in November 2017 and received the City Council’s approval in May 2019.

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The city’s vision for its commercial center includes an active, mixed-use downtown that provides residents and visitors a unique shopping, dining and family-centric entertainment experience, according to city information.

About 100 people, including downtown residents and business owners and area developers, attended the meeting at Enlightened Studios at 142 Miracle Strip Parkway S.E.

At the start, City Manager Michael Beedie said the city plans to host similar meetings about once every other month at various locations to discuss city projects or programs.

“The goal of these meetings is to get citizen input, because there are a lot of big decisions that need to be made with downtown coming up, especially with everything that’s going on” such as the new Brooks Bridge, planned upgrades to Fort Walton Beach Landing and the potential around the mound project, Beedie said. “We want to get the input to make sure that we’re moving in the right direction with downtown redevelopment.”

During his part of the presentation, city Growth Management Director Chris Frassetti said the staff is evaluating options to create a higher intensity downtown zoning district.

Staffers are focusing their efforts on the core “downtown district” bounded in part by Eglin Parkway and First Street to the north, Brooks Street to the south, the Brooks Street-Eglin Parkway intersection to the west and Perry Avenue to the east.

What are the options for downtown Fort Walton Beach?

Frassetti said that in “the most intense” option, the potential higher intensity zoning district could allow a multi-use residential development to have up to 150 apartments or other dwelling units per acre. Such high densities are allowed in parts of downtown Tallahassee, he said.

Such a development would have to meet Fort Walton Beach’s rule of having two parking spots per unit. According to information in a presentation led by Frassetti, such a development “would face significant parking concerns.”

The staff also is reviewing several possible lower-range maximum densities for the potential new zoning district.

“We’re not making any decisions here,” Frassetti told the audience. “It’s just to get the conversation going.”

He said he and other city planners aim to “look at what’s compatible and appropriate for the city, get feedback from everyone so we can all make informed decisions and ultimately develop something that we can take to our City Council with a recommendation.”

A staff recommendation on the possible higher intensity zoning district might be more than a year away, Frassetti said.

Currently, the largest undeveloped downtown property probably is the site of the once-proposed mixed-use project known as the Landmark Center, he said. That vacant site covers 1.35 acres on the northwest corner of Perry Avenue and Miracle Strip Parkway.

In response to a question from an audience member, Frassetti said the potential higher density zoning district would apply to residential units but not hotel units. He answered another question by saying staff does not propose increasing the city’s building height limit of 120 feet, which is compatible with Eglin Air Force Base operations.

'Around the mound' traffic project

Later in the meeting, Beedie gave an update on the proposed around the mound project.

It calls for rerouting Miracle Strip Parkway traffic north of downtown and the historic Indian Temple Mound. While retaining the current, two-way traffic flow around the mound, possibly with new portions of road, the four-lane Miracle Strip Parkway in the heart of downtown would be reduced to two lanes for local traffic only.

As part of that scenario, the downtown part of Miracle Strip Parkway would have one westbound and one eastbound lane, but would not connect to the new Brooks Bridge. However, drivers still would be able to take Perry Avenue to Brooks Street, and the main part of downtown would become more pedestrian friendly.

Beedie said the Florida Department of Transportation has completed a feasibility study on the proposed around the mound project. The agency anticipates choosing a firm in October to conduct a project development and environment (PD&E) study, he said.

The feasibility study identified three potential around the mound route options. Going forward, FDOT officials will try to narrow them down to one, Beedie said.

He said the PD&E study could take about two years to complete. Pending final approval and the completion of design and right of way acquisition tasks, construction of the around the mound project would occur after the new Brooks Bridge is built.

Construction of the new bridge over the Santa Rosa Sound between downtown Fort Walton Beach and Okaloosa Island likely will begin next summer and might be completed in mid-2027.

This article originally appeared on Northwest Florida Daily News: Downtown Fort Walton Beach plans include traffic updates, growth