Gibsonton

Better days check in at old motel

The buyers of an eyesore plan to restore the Red Gables motel and food elements but skip the bar part.

By SHANNON COLAVECCHIO-VAN SICKLER
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 28, 2003

Vacant for the past year, the old Red Gables Barn Restaurant and Motel had become a dumping ground for trash and construction waste, and a prime target for vandals.

So when three Tampa residents bought the 4-acre property along U.S. 41 S in December, their priority was clearing the piles of trash and taking stock of all the broken windows and stolen air conditioning units.

Last week they began renovating the 24-room motel just south of Bullfrog Creek.

Partners Haren Mehta, 44, and Parimal Butala, 45, estimate it will cost $700,000 to $800,000, including the property's $325,000 purchase price, to get the Gibtown Inn up and running within the next month or so.

Mehta, a real estate and insurance agent who lives in New Tampa, said he is confident the money will be well spent.

U.S. 41 through Gibsonton is a sleepy road dotted with auto-repair shops, mobile homes and a couple of small food stores and gas stations. But it's between downtown Tampa and Apollo Beach, a booming community with affluent neighborhoods developing on the water.

Mehta predicts that more people will move to this area of southeastern Hillsborough County and commute to downtown Tampa.

"They'll start using Highway 41 to get back and forth, and I can see Eckerd, CVS Pharmacy, Publix all mushrooming up," he said.

"We look five, six, 10 years ahead. This area in the next 10 years will look very different. And this property will become very important."

The property had belonged to the McCord family since the 1970s, when lifelong Brandon resident Robert McCord began operating it as a motel for farmworkers who came to the area during picking season and worked in neighboring towns, like Ruskin.

McCord died in 1999, his wife soon after that. The property went to McCord's three daughters, who put it on the market in April.

The three partners bought the property as Kotyark LLC, a corporation formed in November. Butala and his wife already operate the Alaska Motel at 1307 Hillsborough Ave. in Tampa, according to state corporate records.

Mehta and Butala also are partners in the 100-room Bay Inn, at 2905 N 50th St. in Tampa, state records show.

The Gibsonton property will be called Gibtown Inn, Mehta said. He decided on the name after watching the 1999 documentary Gibtown, which detailed the town's history and profiled its residents, who work the carnival circuit.

Rates will range from $35 to $40 a week during the off-season, and as much as $60 during season. Rooms will have televisions with free cable, small refrigerators and microwaves.

Three to four employees will be needed each day as maids, security officers and managers.

"We want to hire people from around here so that it helps the neighborhood," Butala said.

After Butala and his partners renovate the motel, they'll spend at least $100,000 fixing up what used to be a bar and restaurant.

Today, it's a dark, water-damaged room filled with old mattresses. But the new owners see it as a convenience store and sandwich shop, or maybe a Mexican restaurant.

One thing's for sure, though: "We promised the sheriff we will not have a bar on this property," Mehta said.

"That is our guarantee. No liquor. We want to improve this area."

-- Researcher John Martin contributed to this report.