Swamp bar and restaurant being torn down for apartments

Musclepug

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Anthony Sabatini (@AnthonySabatini) tweeted at 3:34 PM on Thu, Apr 18, 2019:
1/2: This week Florida’s most significant cultural and historical landmark—The @SwampRestaurant in @Gainesville—was threatened with demolition. So today I filed the session’s most important piece of legislation: Amendment #185001 to HB 7103 designates The Swamp Restaurant as... Anthony Sabatini on Twitter
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78

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Anthony Sabatini (@AnthonySabatini) tweeted at 3:34 PM on Thu, Apr 18, 2019:
1/2: This week Florida’s most significant cultural and historical landmark—The @SwampRestaurant in @Gainesville—was threatened with demolition. So today I filed the session’s most important piece of legislation: Amendment #185001 to HB 7103 designates The Swamp Restaurant as... Anthony Sabatini on Twitter
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That skanky bar a cultural and historical landmark?

:lmao2:
 

crosscreekcooter

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Anthony Sabatini (@AnthonySabatini) tweeted at 3:34 PM on Thu, Apr 18, 2019:
1/2: This week Florida’s most significant cultural and historical landmark—The @SwampRestaurant in @Gainesville—was threatened with demolition. So today I filed the session’s most important piece of legislation: Amendment #185001 to HB 7103 designates The Swamp Restaurant as... Anthony Sabatini on Twitter
()

Sabatini doesn't have any skin in this game. It's an unfair and heavyhanded move against the property owner and future developer who both are heavily invested in this transaction. Sabatini wants to stop it he should have to buy it from the owner at the developers price and pay for all the pre-development costs and anticipated development fees.
 

MADGator

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Anyone remember the plane pulling the Porpoise banner during the first half advertising Kamikaze halftime?

The thing I've always liked about the Swamp is its proximity to campus and blatant homerism. Even if you don't care about their product, just having it there adds character to the area and as Queenie said, that is disappearing and there wasn't a lot there to begin with. I've only mentioned this here about a hundred times but the gameday experience at Auburn is the best I've ever seen and a lot of that is centered around Toomer's Corner, which is large, vibrant, and right across the street from campus. But hey, what do I know? Let's put in more apartments.
 

Musclepug

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all good points, i just feel like we are losing alot of college atmosphere in the stadium area. a couple years ago i was was walking around campus and the were 3 mega cranes doing construction on buildings. it just had a manhatten feel to our "little" town
 

MADGator

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all good points, i just feel like we are losing alot of college atmosphere in the stadium area. a couple years ago i was was walking around campus and the were 3 mega cranes doing construction on buildings. it just had a manhatten feel to our "little" town

Amen.
 

g8r.tom

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all good points, i just feel like we are losing alot of college atmosphere in the stadium area. a couple years ago i was was walking around campus and the were 3 mega cranes doing construction on buildings. it just had a manhatten feel to our "little" town

Those big cranes have been common the last 4-5 years. There is never a recession at UF.
 

neteng

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On a serious note, if you guys are in Sabatini's district, you probably should hold his feet to the fire. He is wasting tax dollars with his stupid legislation which really has some intent to do people harm who are trying to do what they want to do with the stuff they own.

For all you old peeps who think the world is ending because your haunts are getting torn down because they are old and crappy now ... realize, you guys tore stuff down back in your haydays to put up these haunts that are now old and crusty. And 20-40 years from now, the peeps running around campus now will be complaining because their old crusty haunts are getting torn down. Its life. Its a life cycle and thats how it works. Get over it.
 

SeabeeGator

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all good points, i just feel like we are losing alot of college atmosphere in the stadium area. a couple years ago i was was walking around campus and the were 3 mega cranes doing construction on buildings. it just had a manhatten feel to our "little" town
That’s the rub, I think. Gainesville is transitioning away from a college town, with the local specific restaurants and bars, and transitioning to a more metropolitan area. There will be big money for whoever figures out how to bring that small town feel to the new developments.
 

78

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Lol, it's still very much a college town, but the developer money is flowing like I've never seen before, which leads to a more corporate look. That area is the student ghetto. How do you accommodate demand? You do it vertically.

None of this should be much of a surprise. Everything financial related to campus life in the SEC, and pretty much everywhere else for that matter, is ratcheting way up due to the absurd money being thrown at it from multiple directions.
 

SeabeeGator

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From a college town into what?

I find this hard to believe.
I mean... you could’ve continued reading to find the answer to your question...

From what I saw last time I was there and what I’ve read, Gainesville is starting to grow up, not out, and replacing long standing restaraunts and bars with more chains and fancy looking bars.
 

Swamp Donkey

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None of this should be much of a surprise. Everything financial related to campus life in the SEC, and pretty much everywhere else for that matter, is ratcheting way up due to the absurd money being thrown at it from multiple directions.
And the more tax dollars we throw at it, the more they squeal for more.
 

Swamp Donkey

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I mean... you could’ve continued reading to find the answer to your question...

From what I saw last time I was there and what I’ve read, Gainesville is starting to grow up, not out, and replacing long standing restaraunts and bars with more chains and fancy looking bars.
OK, I took it as it was no longer a college town and was becoming an (fill in the blank) town, which seemed hard to believe.

I loved it back in the ghetto, but kids today want luxury apts that rival Kim Kardashian's place, and they will squeal til they get enough student loans to have it.
 

Theologator

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If I recall correctly it was Chaucer’s.

It was a bookstore.

Rather bohemian as I recall. Smelled of patchouli and incense. The employees were dirty hippies and other relics from the 60’s. Hosted slam poetry readings.

Maybe I’m wrong.



Alex.

I ate breakfast at Chaucer’s the morning of the day it burned. That was 1993 - 26 years ago. It was the morning after a buddy’s wedding and we all met there. My 2nd son was not quite a year old. Good times.

I don’t recall it being a bookstore, just a really good restaurant.
 

alcoholica

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Here's a deeper issue that came out when they built the monstrosity on the NW corner of Univ and 13th. The City has a bunch of left wing dips hits running the town. Gainesville used to be pretty well managed. GRU used to not have the best rates, but they were competitive. What's happened is the same thing that's happened in Detroit, Baltimore, etc. The money isn't there, so ideals and principles get pushed to the side. Thirty years ago, they city would have never let the corner of 13th and Univ to be developed in such a manner. Now, what choice do they have. They continue to mismanage funds and just make god awful decisions. They need the money.

I don't care that the Swamp Restaurant is going away. But those who talk about it's link to Gainesville as a college town are right. Gainesville is changing. It is definitely still rooted in UF, but healthcare and technology sectors are growing. This isn't the quaint town we grew up in while at UF. It's different, and most of us don't like the changes. But it's also the change in society and our culture as well. This town will cater to these kids, and they aren't the same as us.

Maybe it's because I still live here, but I don't miss UF anymore. I used to try to make it to a game whenever possible, but now I don't really bother. I could (and have) made the excuses about A/C, high def, etc, but I really just don't enjoy visiting campus much anymore. Between Fuchs and Machen, they have successfully changed the mindset at UF, and it's not for the better. UF always knew how much it meant to G'ville, but now it feels like there is a sense of entitlement by UF and a lack of respect and appreciation for the town in which it sits.
 

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