Meeting Our Community Leaders
Read about a father and daughter team who have worked hard, from the ground up, to bring Gainesville some places we all know and love.
www.butlerplaza.com
www.lakeshoretowers.com
Friends and neighbors are often thought of as the family next door, the people who collect your mail or newspaper when you’re away. But isn’t it true that a neighbor can be someone who has been in the community for decades and helps many by providing economic opportunities for Alachua County’s middle class?
That’s exactly what Clark Butler did when he created Butler Plaza. Butler, and now his daughter, Deborah, have been providing the Gainesville area with a mix of stores that are within the financial reach of all residents of the Gainesville community. And Butler Enterprises has done this while all along trying to maintain a role as good community citizens.
Clark Butler is not a “Johnny- Come-Lately” developer who swept into this community with designs to get what he can and move on. He came here with his brother, Bill, in the 1940s. The Butler brothers opened what could be described as the first convenience store in Gainesville. From a stand on Eighth Avenue near Main Street, the Butler brothers sold produce.
“That was the beginning of Butler Enterprises,” said Deborah Butler. “It was very popular. They stayed open until the last customer came in.”
Over the years, the produce stand turned into an enclosed grocery store. “That’s how we first got into the building business,” she said. “My father drew a plan for the store, and built it.”
Fire ultimately closed the grocery store, and that’s when Clark Butler moved into the building business. He started by building one house at a time. In the 1960s, he swapped the Eighth Avenue site for acreage on SW 13th Street, where he built Lakeshore Towers.
“Dad was not making much money,” Deborah Butler said. “He was building quality homes, putting more into them than people could afford. He then sold them at an affordable price, which left him with very little profit. His developments are filled with winding streets with the trees left standing.”
In the early 1960s, Butler started building garden apartments. He entered the shopping center business in Orlando, building the first Butler Plaza there. Later he built the first phase of Gainesville’s Butler Plaza on Archer Road.
Deborah Butler, who grew up in the family business, officially became involved after getting her undergraduate degree from Emory University, a finance degree from the University of Florida and an M.I.M. degree from Thunderbird, The American Graduate School of International Management.
“Dad asked me to try for a little while,” she said. “I never looked back. I guess it was in my blood. I wrote in a diary when I was 14 that I wanted to be a developer.”
With Deborah Butler’s involvement, Butler Plaza, known as the Miracle Mile, has grown into a 1.2 million-square-foot center consisting of three sections, with more than 100 varied tenants. Butler Plaza is also known as “Restaurant Row” because there are more than 10 restaurants in its one-mile span.
“We wouldn’t be here if not for the American free enterprise system,” said Deborah Butler. “We started with no money, and worked hard. We made a home in Gainesville, and that’s where my family realized the American Dream.”