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If you're in the market for a home or are curious about what your money can buy, then the fall gallery of homes may offer inspiration.
By JUDY STARK, Times Homes Editor
© St. Petersburg Times, published October 19, 2002
The fall Gallery of New Homes that opens today in Pinellas County is a walk down memory lane for the members of the Contractors & Builders Association of Pinellas, the sponsor.
This two-week showcase of new construction is their last gallery as the CBA. On Jan. 1 the CBA merges with the Builders Association of Greater Tampa to create a new organization, the Tampa Bay Builders Association. Final approval of the merger came last month at a board meeting of the National Association of Home Builders.
The gallery is a snapshot of the reasons for that merger and of the state of home building in Pinellas County. Eleven of the 38 models are outside Pinellas -- in Pasco, Hillsborough and Manatee counties, a reflection of the shortage in Pinellas of tracts for big subdivisions that other counties still have in abundance. New construction on a grand scale has moved from Pinellas. Many of the models are in infill projects -- small parcels tucked into already-developed neighborhoods. Several are still on the drawing boards: Builders will show floor plans and sketches, but the models won't be built for several months.
Nevertheless, the gallery "creates some excitement and enthusiasm in the industry and the business," said Peter Krauser of Mark Maconi Homes, who is ending his term as CBA president. "August and September are traditionally very slow" months for home sales, he explained. By October, "traffic noticeably picks up, and sales along with it."
Krauser's company is showing its Madeira III model at Lansbrook, on East Lake Road, one of the planned communities that was a major powerhouse in recent years. Now it is virtually sold out: "If you want to buy a new house in Lansbrook, we're down to the last 10 or 12 chances," Krauser said. "It's the last hurrah there, other than a few odd lots."
The parcel on which he and two other builders are selling their last homesites was delayed in development while ways were found to accommodate a resident eagle. "The eagle's still there," he said.
Like many of his fellow builders, Krauser is now turning to vest-pocket parcels. In Crystal Beach, his Seaside Oaks project is just 10 Craftsman-style homes on a cul-de-sac. His gallery model was the spring Parade of Homes showcase model; proceeds from its sale will benefit Ronald McDonald House.
For many builders, it's infill and redevelopment. Ralph Quartetti of Sun Ketch Construction in Palm Harbor bought the site of the old Hamrick's Lumber Yard on Lake Avenue at Druid Road in Clearwater and is building 32 townhomes in clusters of two, a style he said "is more residential in character and fits the neighborhood" better than larger clusters. The Townhomes at Lake Avenue, ranging in size from 1,650 to 2,050 square feet and in price from $175,000 to $205,000, have three bedrooms and two baths. (No models yet; completion is expected early to mid-2003.) "People want these locations," he said of the site, near downtown Clearwater.
The homes are commanding "much higher prices than the surrounding neighborhood," where prices run from $100,000 to $200,000," Quartetti said. "We're there, at the top of the level. You can really create a presence."
There and at his other townhome project, at Pasadena Yacht & Country Club in Gulfport, Quartetti offers the homes "as a complete package" -- i.e., with wood cabinets and solid-surface countertops (in Clearwater) or granite (in Gulfport) as standard. Buyers would rather know up front what it's going to cost them to get what they want, he said. They don't want to start with a price on laminate countertops and then find that it will cost 'X' dollars more for solid-surface or 'Y' dollars more for granite, or that the glass-fronted cabinets or hardwood floors they love at the model will add several thousand to the base price. "It makes our life simpler as builders and their life simpler as consumers," Quartetti said.
The Pasadena townhomes, 15 homes on the 14th fairway of the golf course in three five-unit buildings, have 2,230 square feet and are priced at $285,000 and $295,000. No models there yet, but there's a sales trailer with floor plans and renderings.
Location, sunshine and water are the selling points at Verandahs on the Bay, an 84-unit condo project at 13040 Gandy Blvd., which spokesman Steve Murray calls "the last buildable piece on Gandy facing Tampa Bay and Tampa." Three buildings with six floors of three-bedroom, two-bath units will rise above two levels of parking to overlook the mangroves. They range in size from 1,770 to 2,187 square feet and in price from $294,000 to $404,000.
"From this location you can get anywhere in 20, 25 minutes," said Murray, vice president for sales and finance for the developer. A groundbreaking is planned later this month and the first buyers will move in in January 2004. A sales center is open at the site.
Another opportunity for buyers to use their imaginations is at The Island Castle at Crystal Beach Heights. Builder Steve Ganes of Ganes Custom Homes is offering two acres on a 60-acre private lake in Tarpon Springs that comes with its own island, reachable from the shore by a boardwalk, with mature cedar and palm trees. The land, part of a former 20-acre estate, is zoned to permit horses.
The house he plans to build on the site -- it's a floor plan and rendering now, which is where your imagination comes into play -- is a 3,500-square-foot "cross between Mediterranean, modern and Key West," designed by Greg Lane, said Ganes. It has three or four bedrooms, 31/2 baths, an office, kitchen with walk-in pantry, three-car garage and summer kitchen. Price for home and land: $759,000. The land is at 468 N Highland Ave. (From U.S. 19, drive east on Tarpon Springs Road a quarter-mile and turn north onto N Highland Avenue.) The plans can be viewed at Ganes' office at 3301 DeSoto Blvd., Suite A, Palm Harbor.
Builder George Zutes of Pioneer Homes remembers that he laughed years ago when an industry analyst predicted that Tarpon Springs would one day become a focus of residential development. Now, "it's phenomenal the way the blank is filling in," he says. "All the growth is circling around."
Zutes is showing 98 one- and two-story townhomes at The Townhomes of North Lake on Spring Lake Circle on a 17-acre parcel on Salt Lake. A fishing pier overlooks the lake, "and they tell me there's some of the best bass fishing around," he said. Buyers who come to see how their houses are progressing enjoy lounging around the pier and dropping a line in the water, he said. "It's a good gathering and meeting spot."
The homes start in the mid-$130s up to the $160s, with three bedrooms and 21/2 baths in 1,378 to 1,758 square feet of living space. Buyers are spending "between 15 (percent) and 20 percent above base price" on upgrades and extras, he said. His buyers tend to be "not your starter home buyer but people who have maybe stepped down from a larger, more demanding house." Many are empty nesters and single professionals. About a third are single women who like the security of a gated community.
Eight of the models in the gallery are in Pasco County. Pasco builders raised some initial objections to the merger of the Pinellas and Hillsborough builders' associations, which they have now withdrawn, and Krauser, the outgoing Pinellas association president, said "Pasco will play an integral part in the builders' association over time. I'm looking forward to real good relations with Pasco."
With major new subdivisions developing along State Road 54, U.S. 41 and Bruce B. Downs Boulevard in Wesley Chapel, and the opening of the Suncoast Parkway, the map shows that that's where the development is going. Says Krauser of the Pasco building market: "I think our fortunes will be tied to each other."
What: Fall Gallery of New Homes, showcase of new construction sponsored by the Contractors & Builders Association of Pinellas.
When: Today through Nov. 3.
Where: At sites in Pinellas, Pasco and Hillsborough counties marked by blue and white signs. Models are open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday; noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.
Information: An ad with a map and list of participating models appears in this section today. A magazine with descriptions of the homes, maps and directions will be delivered with Sunday's St. Petersburg Times in parts of Pinellas and west Pasco counties. Call the Contractors & Builders Association for more information at (727) 561-7422 weekdays during business hours.