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KATHY SAUNDERSThirty condos whose doors would be open to short-term guests may replace the Surf Motel.
TREASURE ISLAND - Local developers are finding ways to bring more hotels to the beach - even with the strict height limits on the waterfront.
Gail Byrne, a local Realtor who in recent years has been developing condominiums throughout Treasure Island, is asking the city to allow a hotel with privately owned rooms. Byrne has a contract to buy the 1950s-era Surf Motel in May. In its place, she wants to build 30 condominiums.
Byrne's project is the second such development to come across the desk of city planners in recent months. In November, the planning board approved a 36-unit hotel-condo development behind the Treasure Island Fun Center.
There are two meetings this week to consider requests important to the Surf project. At 7 p.m. Tuesday, city commissioners will consider a variance for a swimming pool. At 2 p.m. Thursday, the city's planning and zoning board will consider Byrne's site plan. Both meetings are at City Hall, 120 108th Ave.
City leaders support the hotel-condo concept, which is new here but familiar in other resort areas.
"We had a lot of those in Colorado," said City Manager Chuck Coward, who served as manager of several Colorado communities before moving to Treasure Island. At the ski areas, in particular, visitors can stay in privately owned condominiums operated by hotel chains.
The owners can visit their beachfront condos and, "as a hotel, (they) also get a long-term cash flow," Coward said. "They get their cake and eat it, too."
Byrne said her beachfront project probably would not be operated by a chain because there are so few units. Each of the 30 condominiums is expected to have 800 square feet and cost about $400,000.
Byrne has a partner in the project: local businessman Ken Brown, who for several years owned two bars at the entrance to Sunset Beach. He sold those properties last year for the development of single-family homes.
Brown brought the idea to her, Byrne said.
"It's a neat concept because people can use them and then keep them in a rental pool when they are not used," she said. Each of the units would be fully furnished, from towels to toasters.
Coward said the city's main concern is making sure the condominiums are operated as hotels. The land needs to stay designated for "transients" under the city's development rules.
To ensure the project is a hotel, the city has some new restrictions. The buildings must have a lobby, only one parking space is allowed for each unit, and the owners must have a state hotel license. The units do not qualify for homestead exemptions or occupational licenses.
There is no minimum or maximum length of stay for customers, but Byrne said each unit must be rented at least six times a year.
The Surf, one of the city's oldest hotels on the beach, is owned by Dowling Investments and members of the Dowling family, longtime residents of the city. The beachfront property is just over half an acre and is next to the St. Petersburg municipal park.
Byrne said the new project will be called the Surf Beach Resort.
Jack Bodziak, who is the project manager for the 36-unit Palms on Treasure Island behind the Fun Center, on the Intracoastal side of Gulf Boulevard, told Planning and Zoning Board members to expect more proposals for condo-hotels.
"It's economics," he said. "Land costs is what drives the condo-hotel business. Condo-hotels have allowed people to re-enter the market.
"If you are paying $700,000 for a unit, you don't really want to rent it out to people with their kids and everything else on a three-night basis," Bodziak told the board. "You're going to see more of them because I think they are a solution to the vanishing hotels."
Reinforcing the trend, Byrne said she will submit plans next month for another hotel-condo project that "will knock the socks off Treasure Island."