Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
RON MATUSIn a deal brokered with the city's help, a Palmetto Beach day care will get to keep its building and get new managers.
The troubled Palmetto Beach Community Child Care Center may be headed for a happy ending.
GE Modular Space, which threatened to shut down the operation because of thousands of dollars in unpaid rent, received an $88,000 check last week from the day care's owner, the Palmetto Beach Community Association. The association evidently sold property it owns to get the money.
In return for the $88,000, GE Modular gave the association the building and erased the debt, in a deal brokered with the city's help. The back rent and building value totaled $119,000.
"I guess we do have a heart," said Patrick Brennan, a GE Modular spokesman in Devon, Pa.
The center serves 30 to 50 children, most of them the sons and daughters of Palmetto Beach's working-class families.
As part of the deal, the community association agreed to let Advance Ability Solutions, an affiliate of United Cerebral Palsy, manage the operation, said Harry Hedges, a retired banker who mediated the settlement.
The deal hinged on the sale of a lot and an unfinished house.
In 2000, the city sold the lot at 2818 Corrinne St. to the association for $20,000, on the grounds it be used for a day care center, said Jack Rodriguez, who manages the city's real estate division.
The association had planned to move the center to Corrinne Street from the existing building on nearby Davis Street. At some point, the shell of a two-story house emerged on the Corrinne site.
But on Davis, rent problems mounted.
To help rescue the center, the city waived restrictions on use of the land. And on April 17, the neighborhood association sold the property for $97,000, according to the Alpha Omega Title Co.
Plans for the site are unclear. Neither the association president, Vince Ficarrotta, nor the property buyer, Dewayne Barbee, could be reached for comment.
For months, the center's survival was in doubt.
In September, a Hillsborough circuit judge cleared the way for GE Modular to close the center. But the company waited to see if a deal could be worked out between the city and the community association, which had been awarded a $90,000 grant to renovate the Corrinne Street building.
Last fall, city officials considered allowing the association to use the grant to instead buy the GE Modular building. Now it appears the grant will be used to renovate the GE building and help pay for new management, Hedges said.
Advance Ability Solutions runs two other day care centers in Tampa.
It's expected to assume control of the Palmetto Beach center in about a month.
- Times researcher Cathy Wos contributed to this report. Ron Matus can be reached at 226-3405 or matus@sptimes.com