At the August 16, 2022 City Commission meeting, the Commission approved Resolution 22-171 authorizing the City Manager to accept a grant in the amount of $50,000 to conduct an Intensive Level Architectural Resource Survey, which commenced in January 2023. Grant funds were provided from the Florida Department of State’s Division of Historical Resources.
Grant funds were used to hire a historic preservation consultant firm, LW Associates, Inc., led by Laura Weinstein-Berman, AIA, to organize and conduct this project. Architectural Resource Surveys primarily act as a planning tool to provide adequate data to make informed decisions, but most importantly, it documents the City’s history and contributes important data into a repository of historical information. Additionally, as a Certified Local Government, there is a commitment by the City to protect its historic resources and provide continuous improvement to historic preservation efforts, including the identification of historic properties within the jurisdiction.
For this project, the neighborhoods of Riverside Park and Rio Vista were selected, based on the findings from a previous 2018 Reconnaissance-Level survey. That survey identified priority areas within each neighborhood based on the concentration of historic resources. Using those highlighted areas, LW Associates, Inc., prioritized the identification of potential historic districts within each neighborhood and identified potential individual resources.
Below are links to sections of the Architectural Resource Survey Report: