The Gay and Lesbian Community Center of South Florida is moving from its rented home on North Andrews Avenue to a new site at 2204 N. Dixie Highway, and some in the South Middle River neighborhood of Fort Lauderdale are wondering what opportunities the void will bring.

Bruce Tanner, a former secretary for the neighborhood’s civic association, said he is concerned the abandoned area might attract crime.

“When the GLCC moves, we’ll have a significant stretch of dark avenue,” said Tanner, who lives in a condo on the top floor of Drake Tower, across Andrews Avenue from the Gay and Lesbian Community Center.

The issue is the latest in a long battle to clean up the South Middle River neighborhood. The North Andrews Avenue site is a low white building with worn gray trim, edged with grass and shrubbery, fronted by a half-acre parking lot, and is owned by the Tarragon Corp., which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January.

Rick Gibson, a former president of the civic association and a former vice president of the Gay and Lesbian Community Center, described the area where the center currently sits as a stable neighborhood in the process of improving.

But residents such as Tanner are still worried about what might happen after the community center is gone.

“Will Tarragon turn out the lights?” he said. “Also, there are five trees on one side of the building with branches reaching down to the ground. If someone is up to no good — like a drug dealer or a mugger — the trees will provide a perfect place to hide.”

Tanner said he is merely being proactive and trying to avoid creating an environment in which crime could occur.

In addressing the other association members, Tanner suggested they begin “working with people to suggest types of perimeter lighting, making sure that after the Gay and Lesbian Community Center is gone, there will be enough light to discourage the criminal element.”

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