Alachua County Commission votes to purchase Scottish Inn, moves forward with Food Hub pilot program

Scottish Inn

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At their November 14 Regular Meeting, the Alachua County Commission approved a Scope of Work for a Pilot Food Hub and approved the purchase of the Scottish Inn on SW 13th Street for affordable housing.

Scope of Work for Pilot Food Hub

Alachua County Equity and Community Outreach Manager Diedre Houchen said that her staff had conducted community engagement and put together a Request for Proposal (RFP) for a Fresh Food Pathways – Pilot Food Hub with a two-year budget of $962,000 from American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds, open to all organizations interested in implementing food hubs in Alachua County. According to the USDA, a food hub is a “business or organization that actively manages the aggregation, distribution, and marketing of course-identified food products primarily from local and regional producers to strengthen their ability to satisfy wholesale, retail, and institutional demand.” 

The food hub will be expected to source from regional and local farms, support the work of local community organizations, use a variety of marketing and outreach strategies, offer a regular variety of fresh produce and foodstuffs for low-income and marginalized communities, accept multiple forms of payment, and offer nutrition education. It will be expected to use the values of equity, accountability, transparency, environmental sustainability, valued workforce, animal welfare, and community health and nutrition as a “touchstone.”

Houchen told the board, “One way of doing work is called ‘having a sense of urgency.’ An equity way of doing work is thinking about something called ‘urgent patience.’ This is the moment that the board and the community and our staff all need to have urgent patience because what the community is saying to us is, ‘We love this aggregation hub idea, but these other programs [such as access and availability related to food, education, and nutrition] are our priorities, and we’re moving on them.'”

Equity innovations in the RFP

Houchen said the “equity innovations” in the RFP include language describing the primary communities to be served as those that “have faced challenges such as housing segregation, educational segregation, healthcare inequities, mortgage and housing redlining, low-wage jobs, wage stagnation, lack of rights and protections, inequitable access to public resources and public political enfranchisement, in addition to more burdensome access to fresh, healthy, nutrient-rich, culturally appropriate foods in mainstream food retail.”

Prizzia: “A little ambitious”

Commissioner Anna Prizzia, who said this issue is her passion, said she thought the Scope of Work was “a little ambitious.” She said that instead of reporting on performance indicators, the goal should be to “test concepts” and focus on planning, then move forward with implementation when possible: “I’m not saying ‘Don’t do any implementation,’ but lightening up the implementation, increasing the planning,” along with “some sub-awards or mini-grants.” She added, “I think we’re on the right track. I just don’t want to lose the opportunity for this to be built from the ground up in our community by putting out something that they’re not ready to achieve quite yet.”

Alachua County Economic Development and Food Systems Manager Sean McLendon said staff hoped that multiple people and organizations would make a joint proposal because “there’s no one entity” that can currently implement the food hub.

In response to a question from Commissioner Marihelen Wheeler, Prizzia said the goal is to build “a sustainable regional local food system” that allows local entities to purchase locally-grown food, including aggregating the food from the farms, processing it, distributing it to retailers and restaurants, and educating people how to cook the food: “How do we create a system that allows us to work with the farms and create an equitable and fair process for those farms to participate in our local food economy that right now is largely coming from California and Guatemala and New Zealand and instead be from Alachua County and Bradford County?”

Commissioner Ken Cornell suggested that the County may be able to allocate additional money to expand the program in future years because they decided not to move forward with the meat processing plant

Alford: “This is critical work… in the face of climate change”

Chair Mary Alford said the job of commissioners is to balance the budget, oversee the finances, take care of infrastructure, and “the health, safety, and welfare of our citizens. And to me, making sure that everybody can get up in the morning and have something to eat, no matter, you know, if there is a natural disaster or COVID or whatever–we have the resources to get to people quickly and to provide them what they need… To me, this is critical work that we are doing to address the future in the face of climate change. I don’t know how much other counties are looking to see what they can grow when it gets hot outside, and that’s an understatement. We need to be prepared for all of this.”

Prizzia made a motion to “approve the work scope and authorize staff to advertise the RFP after reviewing the performance indicators and requirements and considering reducing the amount of requirements with regards to deliverables” and “to continue food systems solutions engagement and report back to the board in March 2024 with findings.”

The motion passed unanimously.

Scottish Inn

The board then took up the purchase of the Scottish Inn located at 4341 SW 13th Street for $1.77 million; the property will be renovated for use as affordable housing. McLendon told the board, “Converting older motels to permanent housing is a nationwide best practice that we are working towards.”  The funding for the will come from ARPA funds, and funds for renovation are set aside in the Emergency Rental Assistance Program budget.

Prizzia said she was “trepidatious” about the purchase, given the delay in receiving grant funds from the State for the Budget Inn property, but she was comfortable with moving forward because the County already has the funds in hand. The Scottish Inn property is just north of the Budget Inn property.

Director of Facilities Dan Whitcraft said the purchase could close in January, then the renovation design will take about six months. After that, the County would issue an Invitation to Bid for construction services, and the construction timeline would be about nine months. He estimated the property, which has 31 units plus a manager’s apartment, could be ready in the second quarter of 2025. 

Prizzia was frustrated with the length of time before the property will open to residents: “We need housing now, and we have a hotel that’s been sitting empty.” Whitcraft said they would cut time off the schedule where they could, but the work requires a number of contractors to coordinate with each others’ schedules.

Alachua County Community Support Services Director Claudia Tuck said there is vacant land on the property, so the County could possibly site some tiny homes there in the future.

When she was asked how much it would cost to renovate the motel, Tuck said the units at the Budget Inn are projected to cost about $160,000 each; each unit will have a kitchen, a living room, and one bedroom. 

Prizzia made a motion to authorize moving forward with the sale, and Wheeler seconded the motion. 

The motion passed unanimously.

  • The county has no business spending tax payer dollars on affordable housing. Fix the roads, lower the property taxes and stop using citizen money for your own projects.

  • Another hotel for the homeless? I don’t see the commissioners who are giving taxpayers’ money away offering up any of their spare bedrooms for a place to stay. We all know Cornell could board at least 3 or 4.
    Just another day in the liberal ‘hood.

    Hope you idiots are happy with your “elected” representatives.

  • What part of the county budget was being cut to provide the funding for the operation and maintenance of this on an annual basis?

  • Someone needs to do the math, 31 units X 160,000 works out to $4.96 million without contingency, plus the units would come off the tax roles. Redevelopment by the private sector would be less costly, keep it on the tax roles and be targeted to take maximum advantage of commercial frontage on 13th street. This is a busted business plan even before consideration of ongoing O&M.
    The real issue with cost of housing are the oppressive litany of requirements for development (starting with plan development through review and all of the requirements imposed by local regulations), cost of running utilities which encumber all development in this town and raise the cost of housing. Development here is a huge financial gamble that dictates an outsize risk premium due to a flawed political development process. In short, the entire ecosystem is flawed and should be fixed. This project is only putting a bandaid on the situation.
    And no, infill tiny houses or densification in existing neighborhoods are not only undesirable to neighbors, but they are not addressing the real problem. Fix the real problem.

    • Correct. It’ll be a slum, not because the people are one race or another, one age or another, but because it’s an invitation for irresponsible (for whatever reason) people to roost and do their other irresponsible things.

    • Another real problem is the Bidenomics albatross on top of everything else locally. Inflation and interest rates, cheap labor flooding over the border, more wars, etc … 👹🤡🍦🍦🍦D

  • All the bums will be moving here from south Florida because of climate change is why they are doing this…

  • It would be cheaper to put them on a bus and send them to a sanctuary city somewhere not named Gainesville.

  • So our tax dollars can house more people that don’t make an effort to better themselves? Or are they making room for the illegal parasites crossing our borders?

  • Will the entry applicants be screened, so only valid local residents can reside there? Will they be non-addicts and have clean criminal backgrounds?

  • On the food hub, this is what happens in an overeducated college town when not enough grads leave town, but set up non-profits instead. Very tragic waste of humanity, for all concerned, not just them.

  • Put the tiny homes in the commissioners neighborhoods. Let’s see how well that goes over with the neighbors.

    This group is just like Biden and other politicians, giving away the country while they remain safe and secure in their enclaves.

  • Apparently the county’s ARPA money (originally intended to rescue the economy from the covid economic slowdown) is gonna slosh around until it settles onto something at the bottom of the barrel that the commissioners can agree on.

  • Build (buy) it and they WILL come. More waste of taxpayer money to turn our community into the likes of San Fran, Portland, LA.

  • It will be a nice walk from there down to UF or The Standard (13th and University). And Publix. Or maybe they will try their hand at sneaking in the back of a sorority house and eating some free food, like that other guy did recently. They can panhandle at Chopstix Cafe and the other nice restaurants along the way. The Texaco and Circle K are right there at the corner of Williston and 13th as they are heading home with their “earnings,” ready to buy beer and cigarettes.

    It sounds just perfect. They can even try to revitalize what was once a big “historic” prostitution corridor on SW 13th Street.

  • >>”the community is saying to us is, ‘We love this aggregation hub idea”

    What community?! It certainly isn’t the people of Gainesville or Alachua County. No one who works for a living thinks it’s a good idea for local government to renovate old hotel rooms for $160k.

    Anna Prizzia and perennial race huckster Diedre Houchen, both executive officers of the Room Temperature IQ Club, are absolute sociopaths that need to be shipped off to California.

  • Let me get this straight, we can’t even finish the original project with the Budget Inn, which just had to be cleaned up by ASO (more tax payer dollars spent), and the county wants to buy another one??? On top of the fact that Grace Marketplace is a disaster, and just continues to bring in more and more people to trash the city and breed a drug and crime culture. The commissioners need to get the programs they’ve already dumped the tax money into functioning properly first before we keep pouring even more funds into something else. I’m baffled as to why they don’t put the money into the rennovations at the Budget Inn and make sure it’s even something that proves to be beneficial, then worry about buying more property.

  • You know, for $215,000 a bed there are probably a lot of really nice apartment complexes that could be bought in Gainesville. You can buy mine for $60,000 a bed and I have more than twice as many beds.

  • I can not wait to vote all these County Commissioners out of office!
    Another stupid idea that is a total waste of our money.
    How about focusing on our rebuilding our roads!

    • Dear FedUp, an election will not change a thing. If it’s not these 5 Democrats it will be 5 other Democrats with the same thinking. We need to face the fact Gainesville is circling the drain.. Where once we had decent restaurants we now have food trucks..the list goes on. You get the picture.

    • Memo to Fedup: I am sorry to inform you that you cannot vote all of them out of office. Chuck Clemmons and the Rethuglican hit man Stafford Jones used a dirty trick campaign to fool voters into voting for single member districts. You can only vote for one county commissioner now. Elections have consequences. The county is worse off having single member districts.

  • They call the slums affordable housing while rent is through the roof for normal places. Probably pocket some tax money indirectly.

  • Anyone wondering why the owner decided to sell this property? Could it be the proximity of the previous hotel for the homeless purchased by the county made it an undesirable location for visitors? Maybe it reduced the property value? Wonder if they’ll advertise to parents of potential UF students visiting?

    That’s a lot of questions for the new PIO. Personally I’m thinking they’re misusing the intent of ARPA funds and an audit may be in order.

    • Same owners..It seems Mr. And Mrs. Patel sold the other hotel and vacant lot to the county a couple of years ago. They are also the owners of the Scottish Inn currently

  • Another taxpayer funded boondoggle courtesy of our so called “duly elected officials”. Please take more time choosing who to vote for before they destroy our community.

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