There are all sorts of places called “City Walk”: City Walk at Woodbury, in a suburb of St. Paul, Minn., City Walk at Pineapple Grove in Delray Beach, City Walk Condos in St. Paul, City Walk Condos in San Diego, Citywalk condos in Sarasota, City Walk apartments in Oakland, Calif. There’s even a City Walk in Rochester, N.Y., that’s not a location but an organization designed to make Rochester “the best place it could be.” But you get the idea: City Walk is a popular name these days, capitalizing on new urbanism’s trendy focus on walkable communities that mix work, play and living.
And of course there’s City Walk in Palm Coast, the relatively new, isoscelesian commercial spread off of Cypress Point Parkway, where the city has its offices and where businesses have, slowly and not always surely, been opening up shop since 2008—so slowly that the place is facing foreclosure.
Click On:
- City Walk, Home of Palm Coast Government, in Foreclosure
- Palm Coast’s Two Best Arguments For a New City Hall: Take the Tour
- Portrait of a Transcending Mind: J.J. Graham’s Hollingsworth Gallery Genesis
- Palm Coast Muscles Closer to $10 Million City Hall Through Financial Ploys
Now Comes Universal Studios, the entertainment company owned by Comcast Corp., the cable operator. Universal owns City Walk in Orlando. Universal has trademarked the words “City Walk.” Which means Universal can legally prevent anyone else from using the City Walk designation.
Comcast’s second-quarter profits, released last week, clocked in at $3.1 billion on revenue of $37.4 billion. But someone at the company found time to call Bagwan Asnani, the developer of Palm Coast’s City Walk, and threaten him with a lawsuit if he didn’t change the name of his development. A lawsuit was, in fact, filed in federal district court on May 13, 2010.
“You can use the name provided they’re not exactly the same,” Asnani said by phone on Saturday. “We have decided to change the name. It’s not a big deal.”
Universal might have allowed City Walk at Palm Coast, rather than City Walk all on its own, but Asnani didn’t want the commercial center to be confused with an apartment complex. So he’s thought of “City Marketplace” as one possibility, though there will be others. “Over the next week or two we’ll get together with all the tenants and come up with a name,” Asnani said.
Another possibility would have the name “Oasis” in there. That’s a suggestion by John Graham, who runs Hollingsworth Gallery at City Walk. Graham doesn’t take much to the notion of City Walk being renamed anything like a “marketplace.” It’s not a market he sees there but a haven of sorts—an oasis that’s become home to a couple of churches, a couple of art galleries (Graham’s will soon be joined by the Art League’s a few doors down), international food stores, dance studios and other types of atypical businesses attracted by the relatively low rent and Asnani’s willingness to accommodate fledgling businesses.
The name change shouldn’t affect the city’s stationery, which goes by the strip mall’s more general address: 160 Cypress Point Parkway. But the name change is an added bit of confusion for a place that’s been struggling to nail down tenants as well as an identity. There’s some risk in name changes when the result ends up more prosaic than necessary. Until last year there was a non-profit wellness organization in Fort Wayne, Ind., called City Walk. Universal forced it to change its name too. It adopted the more corporate and rather meaningless “Well Strategies Inc.,” which evokes something more familiar to hydrological engineers than anything to do with wellness.
Asnani’s and Graham’s oasis can use a marketplace of ideas.
Anne-Marie says
Just asinine! Was it really worth threatening a lawsuit over?
Anonymous says
Every big City has a special street name called City Walk, so Universal better get busy and start threatening these other Cities too, bunch of filandering fools they are. Universal should worry more about all the problems they are having at there own site and not worry about a tiny City like Palm Coast, Fl.
Jan says
How about, ‘CYPRESS WALK”
elaygee says
Keep voting for Creepublicans who give corporations more rights than citizens
k says
elaygee what does R have to do with the law suit?
celestinewolf says
Ya know….when you’ve got too much time on your hands…..greed and stupidity creeps in. How about “The People’s Place”?
ItsMe says
The Peoples Place would be ok if it were government property and the “peoples” actually owned it.
JAZZYLA says
MY PERSONAL OPINION IS THAT THE MARKET PLACE IS AN EXCELLENT NEW NAME. IT COVERS THE SUBJECT WELL! A PLACE PEOPLE CAN COME TO FOR JUST ABOUT ANYTHING! CITY WALK CERTAINLY DID NOT BRING THE PEOPLE IN AND NEITHER WILL THE OASIS. THERE ARE A LOT OF BUSINESSES THERE STRUGGLING TO SURVIVE, INCLUDING THE LOVELY PALM COAST FLE.A MARKET. VERY FEW PEOPLE KNOWS THAT IT EXIST! SO MANY VENDORS WITH THOUSANDS OF PRODUCTS AT REASONABLE PRICES! CHECK THEM OUT! EVEN HAVE A FARMERS MARKET THERE. THURS. FRI. SAT. FROM 9 TO 6 PM. YOU WILL BE PLEASED YOU DID! YEA… THE MARKET PLACE SOUNDS LIKE A WINNER!
Jeanine says
Cypress Point Center ? ….. Courtyard at Cypress Point ?
Steve says
How about Cypress Walk Shoppes at Palm Coast or The Oasis Shoppes at Palm Coast?
James says
I also like Cypress Point Center, it has a ring to it plus it incorporates the address.
J.J. Graham says
Oasis at Cypress Point. It’s poetic and gives us something to aspire to.
ggpop says
City Oasis
newfloridian29 says
Honestly, does it really matter what the name gets changed to? I believe reading a few months back that this “City Walk” was under foreclosure. And another aspect, palm coasts city walk does not offer in the least what orlando’s city walk has. We have the city building and a few shops and the rest remain empty. Is it really that big of a deal what the name is changed to, instead of worrying about that, worry about getting buisnesses in there, giving people in palm coast something to do other than stealing and dealing drugs, since that is all this town has come to. All this energy should be focused on something important.
DEE WILLIAMS says
LOVE MARKETPLACE…all the other suggestions are just too difficult to remember, complicated, especially for tourists…marketplace will simply attract. Just sayin’…
LB says
I think Cyprus Marketplace or Cyprus Shoppes both sound good. Oasis sounds like something you would see in Vegas…yuck.
Dorian says
Asnini’s house in Heathrow was taken off the market a short while ago. He bought it for over 1 million in 2005…it’s dropped to less than 400k since then. Perhaps Cyprus center/shoppes/whatever will be purchased by another developer/investor, but I wouldn’t bank on anything positive coming out of that development for at least 10 years and by then the disrepair may be a huge problem. Public records of his home: http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1449-Shadwell-Cir-Lake-Mary-FL-32746/47655514_zpid/