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Happy home wreckers

Many South Tampa residents are tearing down their houses and the memories they hold to build new dreams.

By JANET ZINK
Published February 4, 2005

	[Times photo: Ken Helle]
	Keith Steward of Sonny Glasbrenner Inc. loads debris into a truck after the demolition of the Wichman house in Sunset Park. Tearing down older, smaller homes occurs all over South Tampa.

Matt Wichman stands outside his house and watches as Keith Steward maneuvers a backhoe in the driveway.

In just 30 minutes, Wichman's home will be reduced to rubble.

"My final salute to it," he reflects.

Like so many homes in South Tampa, Wichman's house on Tennyson Avenue is another casualty of the teardown trend.

In the past six years, demolition companies have leveled more than 1,770 homes throughout the city.

Many of them are in established South Tampa neighborhoods, such as Wichman's in Sunset Park, where the land value often surpasses the house value. In those cases, home buyers and builders pay top dollar for lots, flatten the existing homes and build bigger, better ones in their places.

"You can almost drive down any street in South Tampa and somebody is tearing something down," said Pete Carlin, owner of Carlin Construction, which will build a new home for Wichman on the lot.

Carlin hired Sonny Glasbrenner Inc., a demolition and concrete recycling company in Clearwater, to knock down Wichman's home.

Of the 400 jobs Glasbrenner does each year, about 30 percent are in Hillsborough County, said John Varrati, controller for Glasbrenner. Nearly all of them are in South Tampa.

The purchase price of a teardown house varies, depending on location and lot size. It could cost as much as $175,000 in Palma Ceia, where lots are small, or up to $400,000 in Beach Park, where lots are big. Waterfront real estate can fetch more than $1-million.

"A teardown is the lowest priced house in any neighborhood - a distressed house on a great lot," said Jackie Colson-Miller, a South Tampa real estate agent for RealWorks.

Some sellers know they own a teardown and market the home as such. They may point out that their large lot could hold a much bigger home and note the size of surrounding new homes. Colson-Miller advises those clients not to spend a lot of money to pretty up the property for selling.

Other owners consider their orange shag carpeting, acoustic-tile ceilings and weathered walls charming. Potential buyers need to handle those folks with care so as not to offend them.

"An elderly couple that has lived in their house for 40 years is very proud of their house, so they would never think of their house as a teardown," Colson-Miller said.

In those cases, she advises buyers not to talk about their plans to call in wrecking crews.

"What you're doing is ripping apart the history of a couple, and it would just shatter them," she said.

Wichman's home holds some of his fondest memories. He bought the house 10 years ago when he was 29. Since then, he has gotten married, had a baby and has another on the way.

It was time for a change. Time for demolition.

"I made my peace with it with a moment of silence in there," he said on a recent Monday afternoon before the backhoe began its work.

He plans to build a new house on his lot, where he'll live with his family and, no doubt, start working on new memories.

Built in 1957

First owners John and Eleanor Adams

Bought in 1978 by Cheryl and Charles Pelleja for $52,500

Bought in 1983 by Brian and Cynthia George for $82,000

Bought in 1986 by Joseph and Deborah Lamphier for $124,000

Bought in 1996 by Matt Wichman for $140,000

Market value in 2005: $270,859

Source: Hillsborough County Property Appraiser's Office

[Last modified February 3, 2005, 10:01:08]