Business & Tech

Organic Living Center Moves to Largo

The Organic Living Center waved goodbye to its 601 Patricia Ave. home last weekend for a fresh start about 12 miles south on Indian Rocks Road.

Dunedin's loss is Largo's gain as far as organic gardener Jai Hambly is concerned.

The Organic Living Center waved goodbye to its 601 Patricia Ave. home last weekend for a fresh start Aug. 1 at a two-building, half-acre property 12 miles south on Indian Rocks Road in Largo.

Hambly, a college-educated landscape architect and master gardener, moved to the Dunedin location in early 2012. She took root quickly, living in the same building as her business to help her organic gardening education and landscaping business grow.

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She sold special mineral mixes for the soil and a variety of organic plants and trees. Her weekend workshops, covering topics like soil prep, composting and making teas, grew increasingly popular. She began seeing an average workshop attendance of 12 to 15, sometimes reaching as high as 35 people. Her open houses would easily attract 100 people, Hambly said. 

It was great for business, but with limited parking in front of her building, neighboring parking lots would fill with Hambly's customers. Her workshop attendees would sometimes double park, a safety violation that drew attention from Dunedin's Code Enforcement board.

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Parking wasn't the only problem.

As code enforcement started cracking down in January, Organic Living Center became entwined in a web of violations. 

Officials took issue with several other practices that Hambly says were originally deemed allowable in the mixed use zone. Her business's natural growth caused certain practices, such as sale and delivery of plants and trees and indoor workshops, to become unsafe or exceed allowable use, such as more frequent truck deliveries, more quantities of trees and plants on the property, and fire code violations from packed houses during workshops.  

Rather than stay someplace she felt hindered, Hambly decided to take a page from Matthew 10:15 — shake the dust off her feet and move to the next town, she said.

"I'm a spiritual person," she said.

Hambly said Largo's economic development department reached out to her with possible properties. And one of them — a bright red, 1930s-era house at 13064 Indian Rocks Rd. — seemed a perfect fit.

Already, Hambly has her hands in the dirt. 

She's planning an entirely edible garden in the front yard and six rooms dedicated to office and workshop use. A barn in the back of the property offers lots of storage and room for expansion. 

The site also has much more room for parking.


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