Main Street -- Naples Style

"This season you almost need a hard hat to get down the street, there's so much construction going on." So notes Jim Smith, whose family has owned property along Naples' historic 5th Avenue South for decades.

As Smith well knows, it wasn't always so. As little as four or five years ago, 5th Avenue was in a general state of decline. Vacancy rates were hovering near 40 percent, and the street was slipping into lethargy and inconsequence--about the antithesis of what a town's main street should be.

But that's all changed now. These days, 5th Avenue sparkles with new shine and bubbles with activity. People line up to sip and sup at trendy sidewalk cafes; new stores seem to be opening every few weeks; waiting lists have developed for the street's residential apartments; and new construction is the phrase of the day. In short, 5th Avenue is rapidly becoming Main Street, Naples-style.

Why the sudden turn-around? The short but overly simplistic answer is "Andres Duany." He's the urban planner, based in Miami, who came to 5th Avenue in October 1993 and, after a week of visiting, listening and watching, prescribed a fix for the troubled downtown area. But to understand fully the story of 5th Avenue's comeback, one has to go back to pre-Duany days, when a group of concerned citizens got together with city officials interested in saving not just one street but the whole downtown area.

B.D. and A.D. (Before Duany and after)

"The genesis was really by Kim Anderson when she was mayor (of Naples)," says attorney Dudley Goodlette, who was involved in those early efforts. "She began taking a look at redevelopment, period, without any defined area in mind." What Anderson saw prompted her to establish a redevelopment task force, comprised of nine citizens who owned businesses or properties in the downtown area. Their mission was to prepare a report and make recommendations both to revitalize the area and to stem the tide of businesses that were moving to the northern end of the county.

That was in February of 1992. By July of that year, the task force was recommending the establishment of a Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) and attacking the problem head-on, before it had a chance to get any worse. City Council agreed and settled on a downtown area of some 600 acres; the task force was essentially re-christened the Community Redevelopment Agency Advisory Board (affectionately dubbed CRAAB); and those involved began to consider what the next step should be.

Enter Jim Smith and the 5th Avenue South Property Owners Association with a bright idea: hire Duany and get his Duany Plater-Zyberk firm to draft a plan. "We agreed we would put up the seed money to get this started," Smith says of the organization he headed at the time. "So we went to the city and said we would pay half the fee for this firm--but not just for any consultant. We were convinced this was the guy who wrote the book."

Smith knew Duany from projects in Florida and Virginia on which they'd worked together. "There are probably other urban planners who are smarter," Smith says, "but I've never seen anyone who could build the consensus like he does. In Naples, it's so diverse, to get people to agree is a miracle."

Smith's opinion proved prophetic. Duany took the town by storm--mostly by listening to everyone who had something to say. The result was an authentic bandwagon effect. "I compare (Duany) to Rasputin," says Ted Tobye, president of the Naples Players, whose organization was brought in by Duany's emphasis on keeping arts downtown. "He mesmerizes you, just picks you up and involves you."

Goodlette, Missy McKim from the city planning department, and Tom Low, Duany's representative who was greatly involved in the redevelopment effort, see another element: timing. "There's probably a combination of factors that contributed (to the rapid pace of redevelopment)," says Low. "The economy has been strong. Along with that is the whole idea of being in the right place at the right time, when people were rediscovering the value of towns and neighborhoods.

"Thirdly, Naples has very good leadership, from both the public and private sectors," he says. "In projects like this, the ones that succeed are the ones that have the strongest local champions. Naples has that. Everyone is willing to come together and work things out."

Bringing people together to work things out is obviously not as simple as it sounds. So the city and the property owners began with small but meaningful steps. The property owners went to their co-owners and tenants and solicited an 85-percent endorsement of and participation in the project, forming the more inclusive 5th Avenue South Association in the process and agreeing to pay assessments for improvements. "A lot of (the eagerness) was that we knew the overall redevelopment of downtown included some 600 acres," Smith says. "We're just six blocks. If we weren't the first in, we wouldn't get the attention."

The city, meanwhile, pursued landscaping changes, worked with the Naples Players and the Naples Art Association to bring those organizations to the street, and set up a 5th Avenue overlay district designed to ease restrictions and speed redevelopment projects.

Ellin Goetz, a landscape architect with J. Roland Lieber Landscape Architects, worked on the design that helped make 5th Avenue pedestrian-friendly once more. She explains that the idea was to build on the street's history through the selection of appropriate plants and lighting, provide shade without obscuring shops and craft inviting areas of relaxation.

"You don't need a lot of landscaped area to make a street look good," Goetz says. "It's the simple little things that make it work. It's in the public realm and in an area that defines Naples."

To further that definition, the city relaxed restrictions to allow for outdoor cafe dining, a move that many see as the single most important factor in the revitalization. "That brought the people back," says Smith. "And where you have people, they will shop. That, in turn, brought a whole new breed of merchants who were willing to stay open to 7 or 8 at night. The new hotel (the Inn on Fifth, opposite Park Street) will add to that. And the theater, without question, will add vitality to the street." Undoubtedly, the Old Naples Trianon, which is under construction just steps off of 5th, will contribute to the avenue's night life.

The theater to which Smith refers is the Sugden Community Theater, which will house the Naples Players. "Duany's concept of having the arts downtown has been a formula for success," says the Players' Tobye. "The idea is getting people to spend four hours downtown. If you look at the plan, the focal point is right where we are."

Fronting the theater will be a city plaza that will serve as a clear center of town. Across the street is the new Ingram building, which will count among its tenants the 5th Avenue South A