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Commissioner wants real estate agent fired
By MONIQUE FIELDS, Times Staff Writer LARGO -- Commissioner Marty Shelby wants the city to fire the broker it hired to sell the former police headquarters site. In a memo to the city manager, Shelby said there has been a "lack of progress" on the project and that many answers to questions were "incomplete, untimely, unsatisfactory and sometimes contradictory." "It has become abundantly clear that the time has come to sever our relationship with the broker we retained," Shelby wrote last week. This is the latest hurdle in a string of challenges the city faces in its quest to redevelop the downtown area. The desire is to see a hotel and restaurant on the property and still accommodate Hospice of the Florida Suncoast, which wants a piece of the 3-acre parcel the city has been trying sell for two years. The commission figured purchasing the neighboring Mobil station property on the corner would increase the size of the property and make it more attractive. So last year, the city hired Clearwater-based Dutterealty.com and sent the company to negotiate. The owner of the gas station gave a price of $1.5-million. Commissioners say that's too much. Furthermore, Shelby and others have begun questioning the efforts made by the broker. They want to hear details about restaurants and hotels that are interested in this prime piece of real estate -- with or without the gas station. Commissioner Pat Burke is among those sharing Shelby's concern. "I'm personally less than happy with them simply because we hired them to do a job, and we haven't had a great deal of information since we hired them," she said. Shelby has asked city manager Steve Stanton to review whether the contract, which ends July 30, can be terminated. If the answer is yes, he would like for the commission to vote on the matter at a future meeting. But Michael Schweiger, a broker and salesman for Dutterealty.com, said if commissioner Shelby needed information, all he had to do was pick up the phone and call. "The lack of progress has nothing to do with the sale of the property," Schweiger said. "It has everything to do with accommodating the needs of Hospice, development entities and the economic marketability of that site to a restaurant." In other words, the project couldn't move forward, he said, until the city decided in January how much land it would possibly sell to Hospice. The downturn in the national economy also stalled the project as restaurants found they didn't have the capital needed to fund such projects after the Sept. 11 terrorists attacks. At least four restaurants have shown an interest. Three of them have recently had a change in ownership, and one stopped all development until the end of the year. Other restaurant chains are located too close to the site or must set up shop from out of state. Mayor Bob Jackson agreed the commission needs to have more updates but also suggested the commission may have played a part in delays when it asked the broker to explore purchasing the Mobil gas station. Still, Stanton said, the time has come for the company to share information. "I don't know what they've done, what contacts they've made or what actual things are in the pot," said Stanton, the city manager. As a result, city officials have scheduled a meeting next week with Dutterealty.com to discuss the commission's concerns and to see whether they can be addressed. The matter also might be informally discussed during tonight's regular meeting. -- Times staff writer Michael Sandler contributed to this report.
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From the Times North Pinellas desks |
