The facility should be a good fit for the Grand Central District.
by Linda Saul-SenaCentral Avenue in St. Pete is neither the beach nor Beach Drive, but it’s rocking with activity. Focused bicyclists dart to their destinations past ambling windowshoppers. St. Pete’s version of boulevardiers lean back in their chairs at cafes while the rubber-tired streetcar clangs along the street. This vibrant east-west artery links the bay and the beach and teems with varied explorers and destinations.
None of these are more varied than in the 1600 to 3000 blocks of Central and of First Avenues North and South — aka the Grand Central District — whose denizens range from the Sierra Club’s NetZero Building to The Burg Bar and Grill to ArtPool’s auto repair shop-turned-boutique and cafe. Now Metro Wellness & Community Centers, the AIDS/social services agency based in neighboring Kenwood, is planning a new addition to the street — an LGBT Welcome Center & Coffee House — that will embrace both the heritage of the district and its future potential.
Brian Longstreth, a Central Oak Park boutique hotel owner and longtime Central Avenue advocate, credits St. Pete’s gay community with moving the area to where it is today. Historic Kenwood’s residential area on the north side of Central was sought after for its charming, undervalued bungalows. Gay and other savvy investors and homeowners transformed the tree-lined brick streets into a stable, well-landscaped neighborhood with a strong civic voice.
By 2000, the rising tide of reinvestment spilled over from Kenwood to the down-at-the-heels commercial strip. Selected for a “Main Street” grant, the property owners developed a plan to spur economic development, which sparked the establishment of the Grand Central District Association. Public funding invested in the attractiveness of this key east-west connection, planting street trees and landscaped planters, wider sidewalks to encourage pedestrians and bicyclists, better lighting, angled parking spaces and narrower street crossings.
Even the underside of the interstate is slated for brightening up. Andy Hayes, an energetic architect and community leader, explained to me that he’d tried to get the Florida Department of Transportation to allow the Association to paint the unsightly columns under I-275. “It would literally take action by the state legislature to do it.” Undeterred, he developed Plan B, a plan to use LED lights in varied colors to shine upwards at the column tops at night, both north and south of Central Avenue.
One lighting option would be the colors of the rainbow, to shine when the St. Pete Pride Parade marches through the district in late June. That’s also when the LGBT Welcome Center hopes to be open, in a historic bungalow that was moved to the heart of Central Avenue. Located near 22nd Street next to Metro Wellness’ Thrift Shop, the Center will welcome locals and visitors with offerings ranging from yoga classes to travel and entertainment info. Its GLOW cafe will provide both a community gathering spot and a safe space for youth.
Larry Biddle, director of development for the LGBT Welcome Center (and husband of David Warner, CL’s editor), suggests the Center will blend in nicely with the friendly, hip culture of Central Avenue, and will also serve as a resource for anyone seeking LGBT-welcoming businesses. “We’ll offer an Angie’s List for the gay community, a guide to services ranging from doctors, lawyers, banks and landscapers and more, which are certified gay-friendly.”
Pinellas County has a sizable gay population, and the Welcome Center will reach out to the robust LGBT tourist market. Only the third such center in the U.S. (the other two are in Miami and Portland, Oregon), the 1,800-square-foot bungalow will also be a safe and inviting location for homeless LGBT youth, connecting them with a host of helpful services provided at Metro Wellness’ Kenwood HQ, from housing to health. (Forty percent of Tampa Bay’s homeless youth are LGBT.)
Fortunately, the bungalow’s original architectural features remain intact, from the hardwood floors to the beamed ceilings and wainscoting, to the double-hung windows and craftsman door. The entire structure was loaded onto a truck, driven two blocks to its current location and survived with all its detailing intact, leaving only the original chimney behind in the move.
Currently a fundraising campaign seeks to raise the $157,000 to restore the 1920s bungalow, adding central air conditioning, reopening the front porch, and updating the electric systems. Floors will be refinished, windows replaced, walls repainted and cabinets reworked. A new kitchen will be constructed under the helpful eye of Kawha Coffee, which is advising the center on the GLOW Cafe.
The Center’s activities will be supported by renting the facility, revenues from the cafe, fees for training businesses and their employees to receive a gay-friendly certification, and sponsorships. The Center’s close physical relationship to the street, with a sheltering porch and plans for a patio sporting umbrellas and cafe tables, is emblematic of its generous connection to Central Avenue’s spirit.
This sense of community was established by the building’s last owner, Esther Matilda Howarth, who led an unconventional life. Esther had adventures as a radio reporter in post-WWII France and concertizing as a soprano soloist with the Florida Orchestra. In 1969 she heard about the Indian holy man Sri Sathya Sai Baba and in 1974 joined a group led by yoga teacher Indra Devi of Hollywood, CA to see the World Teacher. Esther and her brother, a respected local artist, Milton, opened her bungalow’s doors for decades of community meditation.
Certainly the transformation of this holy place to a welcome center is appropriate. What better locale than Central Avenue to celebrate this community’s highest aspirations?