The restaurant's developer is buying the paved lot that admits customer traffic from a man who gained fame selling micro beach-front property.
By AARON SHAROCKMAN
Published January 2, 2004
OLDSMAR - Real estate developer Scott C. Weber made a name for himself by hawking 1-square-inch plots of beach-front property for $50 on the Internet.
Now Weber, 36, has agreed to another unusual real estate deal.
This one will solve a potential headache for some developers on Tampa Road.
This week, Weber agreed to sell developers a piece of property that looks like a road, is paved and is commonly known as Old Village Way, but is, in fact, not a city street at all.
If he had not sold Old Village Way, Weber could have made life very difficult for the Olympia Development Group, which has developed the new Sonic restaurant near the Spinnaker Bay apartments.
Olympia and Weber came to terms on Tuesday, one day before an agreement that has given drivers access to Sonic via Old Village Way expired.
Terms of the sale were not announced, but Olympia attorney Howard Slomka said developers are paying less than $50,000 for the 70-foot-wide paved lot that also is used to enter Spinnaker Bay Apartments. Olympia proposes to turn the land over to the city, so the city could make it a public street and maintain it.
It isn't clear how much Weber, who bought the land in a 2001 tax sale, will make from the sale. According to county records, Weber purchased the deed for $26,500, but Weber's lawyer, Joseph Perlman, said Weber bought the land for less.
Either way, Perlman said Weber isn't making a significant profit. Weber will have to pay nearly $4,000 in unpaid property taxes as part of the sale agreement.
"He's making very minimal dollars," Perlman said. "It was a tax sale. He bought several parcels. You take the good with the bad."
In 1997 Olympia purchased 9 acres of land along Tampa Road near Forest Lakes Boulevard that now includes a Walgreens, a Chick-fil-A and a Dunkin' Donuts, with the belief that Old Village Way was a public street.
Developers didn't find out the paved lot was actually privately owned until they started to develop Sonic, which sits next to Old Village Way.
"For whatever reason, when they first started developing, they didn't realize that was not a street," said Oldsmar director of public works John Mulvihill.
Slomka said Weber threatened to close the lot to restaurant traffic when he learned Olympia had plans to build a Sonic in late 2002. An easement prohibited Weber from blocking traffic to Spinnaker Bay.
Instead, the two sides worked out a one-year agreement where customers could use Old Village Way.
But that agreement expired Wednesday, and Slomka told city officials Weber would "undoubtedly repeat his threats."
Tuesday's sales agreement pre-empts that.
"He's been very reasonable to work with," Slomka said. "He will profit, but not significantly."
Weber owns nearly a dozen properties in Pinellas County and is an officer of two active Largo-based corporations, A&E Investments Group Inc. and Florida Micro Beach Property Inc. He did not return a message left through his answering service Tuesday.
In 1999, he made headlines for selling 1-square-inch beach-front parcels as a novelty over the Internet. Weber purchased an otherwise useless 50-by-120-foot lot south of Treasure Island valued at $400. For $49.95, buyers received a deed, all notary documents and some locator maps.
"It's a lot like the International Star Registry," Weber said then. "But this is actual property you can come and see."
