3 min read May 2024 — Invest: sat with St. Augustine City Manager David Birchim to discuss how the city balances growing tourism with the needs of local residents, with an eye on how to serve the workforce with more affordable housing. “Hospitality is the core of our tourism economy here,” he said.
What have been your key takeaways from the past year?
One of our biggest accomplishments for the year was to finalize a partnership with a private property owner to construct a public parking garage downtown. We also took control over King Street from the Department of Transportation. That street is the main entrance into St. Augustine. This will enable us to design a new entry corridor into the city. We’ve also supported the development of several upscale hotels for our visitors. Additionally, we have entered into an agreement with the St. Augustine Amphitheater to host a two-day music festival called Sing Out Loud in September 2024, which will return for each of the next five years. We continue to support a robust schedule of events across the year, which is a major key to our tourism economy.
What are the top opportunities for economic development in St. Augustine?
Hospitality is the core of our tourism economy here, which is centered around the development of hotels, attractions, restaurants and bars. We also have several regional attractions, such as the beaches, lighthouse, the Castillo de San Marcos, and St. George Street, which bring in millions of visitors each year. We have seen a slight drop in the retail sector of our tourism industry on St. George Street, but an increase in food and beverage (F&B), and hospitality. We are also home of Flagler College, a private college located downtown that continues to grow as it provides a significant value to our local economy.
What challenges are there in terms of economic development?
We struggle with an affordable housing problem in the city and county. This makes it particularly difficult for people who are in our hospitality, F&B, and retail industries to find a place to live. Our city employees have also been impacted by this. It creates an effect where the people with the lowest paying jobs in St. Augustine have to live farther away because the closer you get to downtown, the more expensive the housing becomes. Also, a lot of the housing downtown that was long-term rental property has been converted into short-term and vacation rental property. To accommodate students, Flagler College has developed new dormitories, but there is an overall shortage of housing for city employees and other workers downtown. We have seen a trend of apartment development in the county that in time will hopefully help out. The more inventory we have of rental property, the more prices should come down, making it more affordable for the workers living here. It’s trending in the right direction and we’ll get there despite the current shortage.
What distinguishes St. Augustine from other cities in Florida?
St. Augustine is so unique. It’s a colonial Spanish city with a European flair, and there is really no other city like it in the United States. We have the distinct advantage of having a national park downtown, and it’s on the inlet to the Atlantic Ocean, with a large state park on the beach. Our attractions like the Lighthouse, Alligator Farm, and several museums are always a hit with visitors. We don’t really compete with other communities in the region, but with ourselves to maintain the pace of tourism here. Sometimes, we inadvertently kill the goose laying the golden egg because we have too much visitation, which spoils the experience for tourists because there’s too much going on and too many people. In that way, we have to be intentional about how we manage the visitor experience.
How does the city further engage residents and communities?
We have two community redevelopment areas, and a neighborhood services division manager who actively engages in our neighborhoods. The community redevelopment areas (CRAs) also provide development opportunities in the neighborhoods. In a recent city commission meeting, a finding of necessity was accepted for a CRA in the west side of St. Augustine. This is a great opportunity for those neighborhoods to take advantage of the funding for revitalization. We are also engaged with all the neighborhood associations in town, having regular meetings about all the issues, whether it’s about parking, trash, or resilience.
There’s no magic formula for public engagement other than keeping at it, staying with it, and not getting frustrated. By the nature of it, people come out when they’re opposed to or upset about something, so we do our best to find solutions to people’s problems. With millions of visitors every year and only 15,000 residents, that presents unique challenges.
What is St. Augustine’s approach to sustainability?
We have a chief resilience officer and sustainability staff, who make it a focus to make presentations regarding sustainability projects available to the community. We have a project to incorporate solar power into our public buildings, starting with our existing municipal garage, before moving on to our water and sewer plant. We have a solid waste division to pick up garbage, recycling, and yard debris. We also have a progressive resilience initiative in which we’ve partnered with the state and the Army Corps of Engineers to address flooding issues downtown and citywide. This includes the $33 million Lake Maria Sanchez Stormwater Project that we hope will protect the south end of the downtown area from flooding issues during storms and high tides. It’s an issue we approach diligently with the resources we have. We also try to open up the city as soon as possible after storms have passed us, making a strong effort to clean up and get businesses back in operation.
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