(rshsdepot) Lutz, FL

["James Dent" <james.dent_@_itochu.com>]

Last year's all-volunteer rebuilding of Lutz's train depot is being honored
in a community design competition.

The Lutz community in general and the Lutz Civic Association received an
"Award of Excellence" from the Hillsborough County City/County Planning
Commission.

Two other area projects, built more conventionally, also were to receive
design awards. The University Area Community Center is receiving an
"Outstanding Contribution to the Community" award, the highest category. And
St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church's new church and family-life area
was to receive an "Award of Recognition."

Chris Waldman, the Planning Commission's team leader for public
participation, said the University Area Community Center reflected planning
among a wide array of community groups, even youth gangs. It was built for
growth and for myriad uses.

"I just can't believe how many aspects of the community are coming together
to help this neighborhood," she said.

Input from young people, in particular, could account for the fact that the
building has remained free of gang graffiti, she said.

St. Mark the Evangelist was commended for creating a community center in the
process of building a church, Ms. Waldman said.

"It's an environmentally sensitive area and they really respected that and
incorporated it very nicely into the site plan," she said.

Organized to serve fast-growing New Tampa, St. Mark had its origins seven
years ago when the Diocese of St. Petersburg bought 27 acres on Cross Creek
Boulevard. Today the church serves approximately 1,300 families. A
$4.6-million center, designed in contemporary style, is the first phase of
the church's building plans.

The Lutz depot, by contrast, is architecturally faithful to an early
railroad depot at U.S. 41 and Lutz-Lake Fern Road.

"Lutz Junction," as the railway connection was called, was shortened to
"Lutz" when the town received a post office in 1913. The recreated depot
functions today as a community stage.

Ms. Waldman said judges favored the Lutz depot project because the community
designed it and provided input every step of the way, because it pays homage
to Lutz's history, and because it "has become a center of community life."

Citizens and businesses donated more than $50,000 in money, labor and
materials. "You just don't see this kind of cohesiveness in a community,"
Ms. Waldman said. "We want to hold this up as an example of what communities
can do for themselves."

Ron Stoy, the Lutz Civic Association officer who led the effort as chairman,
said the independence and community spirit that made the depot project
possible is "just endemic to our area. It's just our nature."

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