STUART — East Stuart is poised to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It’s a distinction that would bring recognition to the historically Black neighborhood and its rich heritage, but one that some fear still won’t stave off gentrification.
“East Stuart is quiet, quiet, quiet,” City Commissioner Eula Clarke said during a walking tour one quiet morning earlier this summer. The bars and saloons are gone, she said, looking down the street.
A historian who prepared the application for the historic designation feels “really good” about the neighborhood’s chances for selection. A separate opinion says that East Stuart already is eligible.
“I feel really good about this,” said historian Paul Weaver, president of Historic Property Associates, who was hired by the city to prepare the East Stuart application.
He’s batting 1,000 when it comes to his predictions around historic designations, he said. State and federal reviews are next, and a final decision for a listing as a historic district could come in early 2025.
Lincoln Park
Once called Lincoln Park, East Stuart is historic because, first and foremost, it is “a community,” Weaver said.
“Lincoln Park developed out of a need for housing for African Americans,” according to Weaver’s historic survey report.
It “was really the center of African American life in Martin County,” Weaver said. It was a center for education, religious, civic and business life. Most of the businesses are gone now, he said.
The only commercial center is along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Clarke said.
Churches remain, as do single-family homes and other residential buildings.
The neighborhood survey
Historic Property Associates prepared the survey report of East Stuart between May and October 2023. It assessed whether individual properties could be listed on the National Register of Historic Places and whether the neighborhood could be listed as a historic district.
Sponsored by and conducted for the East Stuart Community Redevelopment Agency, the survey made a record of buildings and other properties built between 1913 and 1974 and “other resources at least 50 years old not recorded in previous surveys.”
One site (Lincoln Park) and 176 buildings are potentially significant to the history of East Stuart, according to the report.
Potential historic district
The proposed boundary of the historic district is Southeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard on the north, Southeast 10th Street on the south, the Florida East Coast Railway tracks on the west and Southeast Tarpon Avenue on the east.
The heart of East Stuart is public housing, Clarke said.
The neighborhood also contains four historic churches, commercial buildings, a lodge or civic building and another centerpiece once known as the Stuart Training School, which closed in 1964.
Stuart Training School
Founded in 1926 to educate children living in Lincoln Park, Stuart Training School was rebuilt in 1937 following hurricane damage in 1933. The school was an educational institution and also a center of community life for Black people in Martin County, according to the report Historic Property Associates.
It served as a community hurricane shelter, a voting precinct and a gathering spot for activities such as concerts, plays and sporting events, the report says.
The school produced many distinguished students such as Willie Gary, who founded the first Black law firm in Martin County, and Howard Porter, who played seven seasons in the NBA.
The school lives on as Spectrum Academy, a special center in the Martin County School District for grades eight through 12.
Gentrification
Many East Stuart buildings have been demolished, Clarke said.
If East Stuart gets a “designation,” historic buildings can be protected and preserved, said Pinal Gandhi-Savdas, executive director of Stuart’s Community Redevelopment Agency.
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But a “historic district designation alone is not going to protect against gentrification,” Gandhi-Savdas said.
At least one person is eyeing East Stuart for potential development.
Keith Burbank is TCPalm’s watchdog reporter covering Martin County. He can be reached at [email protected] or at 720-288-6882.
This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Stuart makes bid to designate East Stuart as a historic district
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