Right now, downtown Brooksville doesn’t exactly come to mind when thinking about local hotspots. City leaders are working to change that.
“We’re trying to provide all the mechanisms that we can to revitalize and keep the downtown going,” said David Hainley, Brooksville’s community development director who is also serving as interim co-city manager, at the March 3 meeting of the City Council. “I hate to say it, after 5:00 is when the sidewalks roll up.”
He was speaking to the council for the second and final reading of a new ordinance designed to replace the Development of Regional Impact District with a new Downtown Entertainment District. Copying similar districts in Crystal River and Inverness, the idea is to attract after-hours businesses and build an outdoor dining area on the northernmost block of South Brooksville Avenue.
The district will impose special regulations for the consumption and sale of alcoholic beverages, limiting to 16 ounces of beer or eight ounces of wine or four ounces of a shot or mixed drink containing distilled beverages. The ordinance passed unanimously 5-0 by the council.
“I have a business in Inverness where there is an entertainment district and I’ve been talking about this for two years. The difference is night and day with the nightlife and the retail businesses, the restaurants, the brewery,” Brooksville resident Lee Johnson told the council during public comment. “We only now have enough going on to really go ahead and do it. But it is a huge incentive for new businesses to come to town, new retail to come to town.
“It works out phenomenally well. I don’t think we’ve had a single incident in the last 20 events. We were all a little concerned up there that there might be incidents, people walking around with plastic cups. But really, there haven’t been any.
“… It’s a great thing, really awesome thing. I can’t think of a single negative reason to say no. It’s been really wonderful for Inverness and I’d love to capture some of that back here.”
The council also approved two items dealing with repaving roads. Public works director and co-interim city manager Richard Weeks asked for the removal of Early Street, Fort Dade Avenue, Russell Street and Main Street from the current Brick Street Ordinance. All of these streets are brick streets that have already been paved over in the past and are in disrepair.
“As much as I would love to see all of the historic brick streets in the city come back to brick; 1. We, as a city, do not have the funds to do that right now and 2. We need to maintain our infrastructure and we need to maintain our infrastructure for our residents,” said Mayor Christa Tanner, an advocate for maintaining the brick roads.
While steps have been taken recently to preserve the city’s remaining brick streets for historical purposes, that means only a thin layer of asphalt with a short lifespan can be used on those roads. This issue came up when Weeks recommended approval for the repaving of streets and sidewalks throughout the city. Each fiscal year, $600,000 is budgeted for road repaving, and city staff has requested to allocate $400,000 for roads and $200,000 for sidewalks.
The streets listed for repaving include Hernando Street, Beale Street (Pryor to Zoller), Oakland Street (Fort Dade to Irene Street), Garland Street, Early Street (S. Brooksville Avenue to Main Street), Bell Avenue (Cherry to Olive), Fort Dade Avenue (Bailey to Gary), Fort Dade Avenue (Lemon to Orange) and Gary Street.
Sidewalk repairs are needed at 317 Highland, the intersections of Howell Avenue and Crosby Street and Crosby Street and Moline Street, 520 Moline St., 117 S. Brooksville Ave., Howell Avenue (end of the Hernando High football field), Howell Avenue (near First Baptist Church) and 516 Howell Ave.
Weeks also discussed adding a sidewalk on North Avenue near Hernando High, believing it was necessary due to population growth and the safety of the students. The council agreed it wants to move forward with a plan to add that project to the 2026 budget.
“I can say as somebody who’s lived off of North Avenue my entire life that a sidewalk is necessary on North Avenue,” councilman J.W. McKethan said. “Every time I’m on that street, there’s at least one or two people and that’s not even counting right after school, that’s when I’m getting home from work around 5:30-6:00 and there’s at least two or three people on that street and it just gets dangerous. It’s a low speed limit, but nobody goes 25 on North Avenue.”
The council approved using Inspire Placemaking Collaborative as the consultant for the South Brooksville CRA (community redevelopment agency). It was a necessary first step to creating the CRA because the consultant is needed to conduct a study on the redevelopment of South Brooksville. Both the city and the county are splitting the cost of $150,000 for the consulting contract.
There was also a review of draft language of an ordinance limiting self-storage, car washes and medical marijuana dispensaries. The council agreed to language that restricts gas stations from adding car washes.
