GEEKNOTE: Hacienda Cleanup, Part Two

GEEKNOTE:  We had lots of fun at work this past week, including building out a new i5 business class system with some very cool features, working with Microsoft's Hyper-V to see how many servers we could get running on a Xeon server box smaller than my toaster, and testing a new server backup system in search of an economical backup solution for one of our business customers.  I'm going to save reports on these and talk a bit about the Hacienda.

First, a little background:  The City purchased the Hacienda back in 2003 and the building has been vacant since the previous owner moved out in 2006.  The city has been trying ever since sell the building to a private developer who could redevelop the Hacienda into a hotel again.  Late last year, the council accepted the fact that the private sector simply isn't going to be able to do anything with the Hacienda any time soon and moved on to "Plan B"... fixing up the Hacienda ourselves and working on options to get the building occupied and a centerpiece of the downtown once again.

We had an initial work day in January, where nearly 400 folks showed up to take a first pass at cleaning up the building.  The crew filled up two huge dumpsters within the first couple of hours.  It was a great show of community support for the idea of having the City and its citizens adopt the redevelopment of the Hacienda as their own project.

About a hundred of us arrived bright and early this past Saturday morning.  The group that showed up was smaller than in January, but much more manageable for the tasks that had been identified for the day:  Painting handrails and ironwork, installing a sprinkler system, and fixing broken windows.  Someone with an interesting sense of humor assigned three computer geeks  (Greg Smith, Sean McCart, and myself) to the task of fixing windows... the glass kind, not the Microsoft kind.

We got the broken glass out of several windows facing the courtyard plus two broken windows in the kitchen.  It wasn't too bad, once we figured out how to get the molding off.  The old glass is going to be replaced with Lexan (tm) for the short term.  I expect hurricane resistant safety glass will ultimately follow.  We've still got more windows to do the next time.

The addition of black paint to the ironwork around the courtyard and to various handrails made a huge improvement in the appearance of the building.  The painting crew did an amazing job.  With the ironwork looking so nice, we definitely need to do the window frames and other exterior trim.

Probably the hardest labor done Saturday was the installation of a sprinkler system in the courtyard and the other areas that should have grass rather than weeds.  Shovels were in use all over the yard at once as the crew dug the trenches for the new sprinklers.  I suspect sod will follow shortly.

There is still a lot of work to be done, but the next steps will involve some environmental testing to see what precautions need to be taken before proceeding with the inside renovations. 

What will those renovations be?  Several folks left comments that the old patio area on the north side should be opened back up.  If this is done, it will require some serious demolition of non-load bearing interior walls that now divide part of the old patio area into a bunch of little rooms.  Keeping the roof would provide a beautiful covered patio area looking out on Sims Park.

There is an area of the original oak floor exposed in the big central room as you come in the front of the Hacienda.   The floor is currently covered with a fairly nasty green vinyl tile that looks like it dates back to the 70's.  It would be quite the project to restore the oak floor, but I suspect it would be beautiful when refinished.

The kitchen and dining room will need work before a restaurant can open in the Hacienda.  Most of that work would best be done once a restaurant operator is signed up to lease the space as they would no doubt have some opinions regarding how to refinish these two rooms.

The previous owners strung exposed telephone and network cables down the hallways.  That will have to be cleaned up and properly covered.

Finally, city staff has identified some plumbing issues, so we'll be needing one or more plumbers to come in and make sure all the pipes are in good shape before we get much further along with other projects.

The City has announced a painting party for the old post office for April and I expect to see more community work days announced for the Hacienda shortly.

The City Council will be sitting down at some point soon to kick around specific ideas regarding what sorts of businesses we'd like to see in the Hacienda. A recurring suggestion has been to get a nice restaurant in the Hacienda.  Other ideas have included a visitor welcome center staffed by the Chamber of Commerce, a tour boat operator based at expanded docks in Sims Park, a canoe/kayak livery that also uses expanded docks in the park, some 1927 period hotel rooms (named after the businesses that pay to renovate them), historic tours of the hotel and other parts of the city, a conference center, and the list goes on. 

I encourage you to watch for announcements on Patch as the Hacienda discussion is scheduled for future council meetings and plan to come and share your ideas.   The redevelopment of the Hacienda is not an either/or situation.  It is big enough that we can have a number of different things in the building, all working to make it a grand destination.  With the City retaining ownership of the physical building and leasing out parts of the Hacienda for various compatible businesses, I am positive that we can make great things happen.

A couple of us were dreaming a bit Saturday about how great it would be to be able to reserve a table on the patio for dinner at a steak / seafood restaurant next spring and listen to one of the Chasco concerts in the Sims Park bandshell while we had a great dinner.  We won't make it for this year, but that dream could be alive and well by Chasco 2014.

The Hacienda project, coupled with a new playground and other Sims Park upgrades, the downtown PCPT bus depot, a business incubator in the old post office building, and a general sprucing up of the entire city will give folks lots of reasons to want to buy homes in New Port Richey where they can live within walking or biking distance of a vibrant downtown. 

As I told several folks Saturday, I am more positive about the future of New Port Richey now than I've been in years.  As a community, we have the will and the means to move forward on a number of fronts without having to depend on outside saviors to come in and make things happen.  The community interest in bringing the Hacienda and the old post office back to life is amazing.  The great crop of folks willing to run for the two city council seats this year is another example of citizens willing to sacrifice their time and talents to make our city a better place.

If you'd like to read a history of the Hacienda, visit http://fivay.org/hacienda.html

I'll talk about some of our computer / geek projects next week.

As always, feel free to drop me a note or give me a call if you have any questions about your computer or the Internet.

Rob Marlowe, Senior Geek, Gulfcoast Networking, Inc.
http://www.gulfcoastnetworking.com

(Rob also serves as deputy mayor of the City of New Port Richey. Opinions expressed here are his own and do not necessarily represent the position of the city.)