Shops, restaurants and a stream of new residents have turned sleepy Stuart into a vibrant — but still charming — downtown.

Amanda Voisard/The Post

NIGHT LIFE: The Lyric Theatre is a popular nighttime spot in downtown Stuart, bringing in a variety of musicians, dance theatre and plays. This year, the venue has hosted everything from the Lovin' Spoonful to the Benny Goodman Orchestra.

David Spencer/The Post

MARINE LIFE: Water is all around in downtown Stuart, where the Sailfish Fountain is a landmark.

Erik M. Lunsford/The Post

WATER VIEW: Flagler Park in downtown Stuart can be a lunchtime oasis with its views of the St. Lucie River. The park is just steps from Stuart's old downtown district and newer homes like those in Stuart Cay.

Visitors to downtown Stuart can stroll its historic streets and shop cute boutiques, dine at cozy little eateries, take in a show at the Lyric Theatre or meander over to the newly rebuilt boardwalk, which offers spectacular views of the St. Lucie River.

But at the end of the day, most of them return home to one of the many subdivisions that have sprung up around Stuart in recent years.

Most, but not all. As available land for new development has dried up, zoning changes have made the city center more attractive, and as empty-nested Boomers feel the pull of vibrant urban life, new residents are discovering downtown.

"This is what urban infill is all about," says Jeff Daugherty of Treasure Coast Homes, a builder that last year began constructing Stuart Cay, a small neighborhood of new homes tucked alongside Frazier Creek. "It's important to use existing land and help it perform its best. If you're going to provide housing opportunities, it's good to put them where there are jobs and it's sustainable.

"You can actually live and work here and walk to things."

Stuart Cay is an enclave of 18 colorful Key West-style homes, 11 of which have a deeded dock on the creek ideal for small skiffs or kayaks. The neighborhood includes a heated community pool, landscape maintenance and three-story models with elevators.

Upscale touches include crown molding, cherry kitchen cabinets, granite counters and stainless steel appliances. Every home has porches and balconies and was designed to fit in with the historic charm and character of downtown Stuart.

"We wanted people to have to ask, 'Is this an old neighborhood that's been well-maintained, or is it new?'" says Daugherty.

Prices for the homes start at $289,000 for a 2-bedroom, 21/2-bath duplex and go up to $679,000 for a three-story home with elevator and dock.

The neighborhood, like many of the properties for sale downtown, is aimed at young professionals, older singles or empty-nesters looking to be close to the activities of a more urban area.

That describes Stuart Cay resident Tom D'Alessandro, who bought his 2-bedroom, 2½-bath home last August.

A recent divorce had left D'Alessandro feeling out of place in his couples-filled Sewall's Point neighborhood.

"I felt living in the downtown area there would be more singles, more things happening," he says, and it seems to be paying off. "The other night I went with some friends to see The Outlaws play at the Lyric."

D'Alessandro and others finding their way to downtown Stuart can thank the efforts nearly 20 years ago of forward-thinking city leaders who wanted to save a dying city center.

"Osceola Street was so vacant you could roll a bowling ball down it at lunchtime and not hit anything," says Kim DeLaney, growth management coordinator with the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council.

DeLaney was Stuart's city planner during much of the 1990s, shortly after the creation of the Community Redevelopment Agency, or CRA, which initiated changes to zoning laws.

"It allowed more flexibility in design," says DeLaney.

Because downtown Stuart had been built with an urban structure — on-street parking, alleys and small lots — the new CRA zoning allowed builders to put larger buildings on smaller lots with fewer parking spaces than normally required, and they could build multi-use structures, such as office space with condos on top.

Meanwhile, the city invested in more public parking, street pavers, landscaping and lighting, park improvements, a boardwalk along the river and other beautification projects to make downtown more pleasing.

Festivals and art shows were planned to attract visitors and show off the spruced-up city center.

The trade-off? Builders had to follow certain architectural styles and features, such as metal roofs and pastel colors that would blend with the area's historic flavor and maintain property values.

Stuart's approach has fueled a steady stream of building permit requests, says Kevin Freeman, the city's development director.

"Building start dates are pushing back into next year instead of 2007," he says. "But the interest remains. There hasn't been a lot of business turnover in the downtown core area with the exception of one or two businesses that have changed hands.

"But Harborage, north of Roosevelt Bridge, is among residential projects that are changing the shape of what's still considered the downtown area."

Freeman is referring to Altman Development's $70 million-plus project that began opening this spring along a 3,000-foot stretch of the St. Lucie River. Harborage includes 126 condominiums, two planned marinas and nine buildings that top out at the city's four-story cap.

Three hotels, including a Hampton Inn and Holiday Inn, also are proposed for the area across the river from downtown Stuart.

Another mixed-use project, HAI Group's Civitas Place near the courthouse, includes 24 condos plus retail and office space.

Other projects that have taken advantage of the new rules are the Sterling Mortgage building (it has a penthouse with sunset river views) and the Osceola Place live/work building with storefronts on the first floor and condos above.

While there's been criticism that some projects are too big, and parking remains a problem, downtown Stuart now thrives with shops, restaurants and new residents happy to call it home.

DeLaney and others say what's happened in Stuart reflects a national trend: the desire to preserve and nurture small city centers.

Not everyone, they point out, wants or needs to live in the 'burbs.

"Across the country, there's been a renewed interest in downtown redevelopment," says DeLaney. "People are looking for that pedestrian-oriented, mixed-use setting that's a contrast to a golf course community."

Staff writer Loretta Grantham and staff researcher Rachel Schaff contributed to this story.

KEITH BEGLEY
HIS HOME: A 1920s duplex
WHEN HE MOVED IN: 1999

WHAT HE PAYS: About $1,000 a month in rent

WHY HE LOVES IT: Not everyone who lives in downtown Stuart owns their home. Even before the community redevelopment sweep of the 1990s, much of the area was made up of rental apartment buildings, duplexes or other multi-family structures.

Keith Begley is one such resident. He's lived in downtown Stuart for the past eight years; before that, he lived in Club Med in Port St. Lucie.

"Everything is convenient," says Begley, who works as an administrator for Albert G., a high-end interior decor shop downtown, and also serves as a lobbyist for HIV/AIDS advocacy issues. "And everyone on my block is friendly, everyone looks after one another. We've got a (deputy) sheriff on the block, another person who works for Grumman. And they recently did some landscaping around here that's beautiful."

A transplanted New Yorker, Begley's been in Florida since 1992, and he likes that downtown Stuart, while small, has a new vibrancy.

"The Lyric Theatre came a long way from what it was when I got here," he says. "And I like fine dining. I love La Familia, and I love the Ashley - that's where I celebrated my 40th birthday this year.

"I have always loved big cities, and this is becoming a city with a lot of active storefronts," he says. "We have a lot of commercial mixed with residential, which I think is wonderful."

Though Begley rents now, he dreams of one day owning a home downtown, perhaps even the one he's living in.

"I love my front and back porches," he says.

MIKE & MARIE BRAID

THEIR HOME: A two-story wood frame home built in 1913 that was part of the original property Stuart Cay now stands on. The builder of Stuart Cay, Treasure Coast Homes, decided to renovate the home and keep it as part of the development. Sam Matthews, a builder who helped Henry Flagler construct the Poinciana Hotel and The Breakers in Palm Beach, built the home for himself, along with more than 30 other historic structures in downtown Stuart.

WHEN THEY MOVED IN: March 2005
WHAT THEY PAID: $325,000
CURRENT VALUE (from Zillow.com): $626,757

WHY THEY LOVE IT: Mike Braid has been buying, restoring and reselling old homes in the downtown Stuart area for years. He still owns and rents out a number of them.

But for his own residence, he couldn't resist the charm of his nearly 100-year-old home.

"It's one of the most historic in the area," he says. But beyond the house itself, it's the neighborhood that keeps him downtown.

"Everybody's friendly, they walk around, go porch to porch," he says. "It's really a community. The downtown area is the major amenity. The people who live downtown want to be able to walk downtown."

Braid likes to compare his neighborhood to what you might find in Manhattan's Greenwich Village or SoHo - a smaller area within a bigger area that has its own vibe, its own familiar shops and restaurants and where almost everything you need is within walking distance.

"You don't have to be living downtown for long before you know all the shopkeepers. People here don't want to live on their 2 acres by themselves. You lose a little privacy but you gain everybody looking out for you. Downtown is a way of life."

TOM D'ALESSANDRO

HIS HOME: A 2-bedroom, 21/2-bath, 1,600 square-foot, two-story home in the new Stuart Cay development along Frazier Creek. A separate garage building behind his home boasts a 400-square-foot studio apartment above it that he can legally rent out. His current tenant is a young lawyer who just moved down from Cleveland.

WHEN HE MOVED IN: August 2006
WHAT HE PAID: $524,000
CURRENT VALUE (from Zillow.com): Not available

WHY HE LOVES IT: D'Alessandro moved to Florida in 1979 from New York, but he hasn't sat still. For the first 10 years he lived in the Jupiter area and established Tomlyn Gallery of fine art in Tequesta, which he still owns. He and his former wife then built a home on Hutchinson Island and lived there for a while until moving to Sewall's Point.

But after his divorce, D'Alessandro wanted the more active lifestyle afforded by downtown living, and he discovered Stuart Cay.

"One of the things I do with a friend of mine is buy old homes and restore them and sell them, so I know how things should be built," says D'Alessandro.

"This home is well-designed and well-built. And I felt this was a really unique development."

Now that he's been living there nearly a year, D'Alessandro - like many of his neighbors living in the tucked-away parts of downtown away from bustling Osceola Street - marvel at how quiet their neighborhood is, despite being a few blocks from a major road and the Roosevelt Bridge.

"It's quite charming and beautiful," he says. "And a lot of people don't know this is here. They go up U.S. 1 and go right by it."

In his new home, D'Alessandro converted a downstairs room into a billiards den so that when his sons, Teo, 13, and Alec, 11, visit they can all play pool together. If they get hungry, a host of restaurants is just a short walk away. His favorites are Gusto's for lunch and Osceola Café, where he meets a group of friends every morning for breakfast.

"There's a lot happening downtown," he says. "It's a great little place to live. It's a peaceful spot and you can walk to everything downtown."

GARY & CARON KELLY

THEIR HOME: A Florida vernacular-style 3-bedroom, 21/2-bath, 2,000-square-foot main house with a separate garage building with a one-bed, one-bath apartment above the garage they use as a guest quarters.

WHEN THEY MOVED IN: 1997
WHAT THEY PAID: The Kellys tore down a tiny, ramshackle building on the property and spent about $250,000 to build a new house and garage building, which they designed.
CURRENT VALUE (from Zillow.com): $537,837

WHY THEY LOVE IT: Gary Kelly has a favorite story to tell about the home in downtown Stuart he shares with his wife, Caron.

"When we built it, I wanted it to look like it was part of the neighborhood originally," says Kelly, an architect. He succeeded. "The first year after we built it, the historical society came by. They said they wanted our house to be on the historic home tour."

Tucked underneath big trees with a metal roof and front porch, the Florida vernacular-style home does look like it's been there since the start of the last century, like other properties on the street.

The Kellys were among those who took advantage of changes brought by Stuart's Community Redevelopment Agency, launched in the early 1990s to revitalize the city's downtown center. New zoning laws initiated by the CRA allowed the Kellys to build a bigger house on a smaller lot, among other perks.

"It's working," he says of the CRA's efforts to make downtown attractive to new residents. "And for the most part, people like what they're seeing."

The Kellys especially like what they see each morning: their office, right across the street.

Because the CRA allows for homes and businesses to mingle, Gary and Caron Kelly can walk out their front door, take a few steps and be at the door of the office building they share. One side houses his business, Kelly & Kelly Architects, while on the other side, his wife runs her design business, Caron Kelly Interiors.

"I like being downtown, the redevelopment, the restaurants, the activities," says Gary Kelly.