Panel backs rezoning for newspaper to build

After a five-hour discussion Thursday, the Collier County Planning Commission voted to recommend approval of a rezoning request by the Collier County Publishing Co. to build a new Naples Daily News building.

The publisher of the Daily News is asking for a business-park zoning for 36 acres behind the Granada Shoppes in North Naples.

Just before the 4-2 vote, Tammie Nemecek, president of the Economic Development Council of Collier County, pleaded with commissioners to help pre vent the Daily News from leaving Collier County for Lee County because there is no appropriate land for expansion.

"We have had several companies move to Tennessee and North Carolina," she said.

With two commissioners — Mark Strain and Russell Tuff — abstaining because they have a working relationship with the newspaper and commissioner Robert Vigliotti absent, it appeared the vote could split 3-3.

The panel is advisory only. The Collier County Commission will have final say when it votes on the matter July 25.

Much of the debate Thursday focused on the amount and type of green space and buffer the Daily News is willing to provide as well as concern about the 75-foot height needed on a section of the building to house new multimillion-dollar printing presses.

Even though the Daily News had "letters of no objection" from the nearest residential communities, Pelican Marsh and Collier's Reserve, commissioners were vigilant about watching out for residents' interests.

Commissioner Brad Schiffer was particularly bothered that most of the green space that would be credited to the Daily News business park is across the street, and 2,500 feet away from the main building. The preserve property, which would be purchased by the Daily News, is in an area bordered on three sides by Pelican Marsh.

"All that landscape is normally on the site with the building," Schiffer said, just before the vote.

He then sided with three others to make a majority to recommend approval.

The property is an assemblage of five tracts, including 2.32 acres from Creekside Commerce Park just east of the Daily News site.

The land also includes 21 acres and a 2.5-acre slice zoned for agricultural uses, once home to We Pick Produce, a farm stand and U-pick.

The property also includes 2 acres of a portion of existing Creekside Boulevard and the piece of property across the street from where the main building would be located. That property has the 7.8 acres of lakes, golf cart paths, buffer and preserve.

Schiffer referred repeatedly to the gerrymandering that was necessary to meet the green space/ preserve requirement to qualify the property as a business park.

"All the good stuff went down that gerrymandered parcel," Schiffer said.

But Nemecek's presentation made it clear why such maneuvers have occurred.

She told commissioners that a recent analysis by her organization showed a deficit of 3,700 acres for business uses in Collier County. She said that the land that is left for business development is similar to the Daily News parcel.

The strangely configured parcel where the preserve is located was carved out of the Pelican Marsh Development of Regional Impact in 1999. It was added to the Creekside development as a part of a settlement agreement between Westinghouse Communities of Naples, developers of Pelican Marsh, and Ocean Boulevard Partnership, developers of Creekside.

Nemecek went to bat for the Daily News because, as a high-wage company that employs more than 350 people and intends to add 50 more jobs, it has qualified for the EDC's fast-tracking program. The program is designed to get businesses through the red tape of rezoning and permitting in a timely manner. Nemecek said some companies have left Collier County because the permitting process is too costly and time-consuming.

Companies participating in the fast-track program still have to go through the same scrutiny as other applicants.

Naples-based Barron Collier Cos., the owner of the agricultural land, teamed up with Collier County Publishing on the rezoning request. Creekside is home to the corporate headquarters of Arthrex and Hellermann Tyton.

Other tenants include a post office, bank and medical offices.

About two-thirds of the 104-acre park is developed.

Commissioner Paul Midney, who cast one of two dissenting votes, asked three times whether the Daily News would be donating any money toward an affordable housing fund.

Attorney Bruce Anderson, representing the petitioner, said there were no such plans.

Commissioners are expected to pass an affordable housing linkage fee ordinance, which could levy a 50 cents per square foot affordable housing fee on all new commercial buildings. The Daily News fee would be around $100,000 if it builds the proposed 200,000 square foot building.

Fees are collected when a building permit is pulled. The Daily News construction is expected to start in 2007.

The other dissenting voter, Donna Caron, asked again and again about providing a 25-foot-wide buffer on the south side of the property.

The Daily News had requested reducing the buffer requirements between Creekside Commerce Park and the Daily News, and the Granada Shoppes and the Daily News.

But before the majority recommended approval, the Daily News agreed to plant buffers on the south, east and west side of the building.

They also agreed to extend Creekside Way to Creekside Boulevard; put in a traffic device near Immokalee Road, pay for maintaining the lake in the Pelican Marsh area, build structures around generators to keep down noise, limit use of the property to ones similar to those in Creekside Commerce Park and meet with Pelican Marsh property owners after the building is designed.

But the Daily News wouldn't agree to limit truck access to one entrance.

After the vote was taken, six hours after the meeting began, Daily News Publisher John Fish seemed relieved.

"I'm glad we have majority approval from the Planning Commission and I hope the County Commission agrees with their assessment," he said.

Collier County Publishing is part of the E.W. Scripps Co., a media conglomerate. In addition to the Naples Daily News, the local company publishes the Bonita Daily News, the Bonita Banner, the Marco Island Eagle, the Collier Citizen and Latinos Ahora, or Latinos Now.

The Daily News' offices have been in Naples since the 1940s and the plant on Central Avenue has been around since 1969. The headquarters now rests on about 10 acres — not enough land to meet future needs.