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Leading the buyers group is a diver and boater who is active in the city's civic and business community.
By RAGHURAM VADAREVU
Published March 16, 2005
CRYSTAL RIVER - The leader of the company that bought the Three Sisters Springs property is a well-known Tampa civic leader who has as much passion for diving and boating as he does for developing skyscrapers.
Harry C. "Hal" Flowers of Three Sisters Springs Holding Inc. bought the nearly 60-acre parcel this week for $10.5-million, raising concerns among officials and activists about public access to the pristine springs system and the impact that development there would have on the city.
"He's sensitive about his reputation, and I think he wants to do something that is good for his partners, his (investment) group, and is good for the community," said Dick Beard, Flowers' longtime friend.
"I think he would be very open and very concerned" about the impact that any potential development would have on the environment and the community, said Beard, chairman of the University of South Florida Board of Trustees.
"He's a boater and a diver," said Beard, also a diver who once recertified in Crystal River. "I would think he would not want to do anything that would be harmful to the environment up there."
Flowers, 57, is widely known in Tampa, having been involved in the city and in commercial real estate development there for 30 years. Beard and Flowers are members of Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla, the 100-year-old civic group that sponsors the annual pirate invasion of Tampa known as Gasparilla.
Flowers, a Georgia native, graduated from George State University in Atlanta in 1970 with a bachelor's degree in business administration. Jumping into the real estate world in Atlanta while still in college, Flowers' first assignment was to lease a 32-story high-rise in the city's downtown.
In 1973, Beard said he lured Flowers to Tampa.
"I was a broker in Atlanta at the time but was interested in getting in the development business," Flowers told the St. Petersburg Times in April 1998.
Flowers has been involved in more than 34-million square feet of commercial lease transactions and the development of more than 7-million square feet of office and industrial space, according to a 2002 news release from the Tampa Downtown Partnership, a business improvement organization.
These properties include two 42-story buildings in downtown Tampa, the Bank of America Plaza and 100 North Tampa, plus the 42-story Barnett center office tower in downtown Jacksonville and more than 20 suburban office buildings in Georgia and Florida, the news release said.
As he kept one foot in the real estate development world, Flowers has stayed active in the city's civic and business community. A former chairman of the Tampa Downtown Partnership, he is involved with other organizations such as the Florida Aquarium, Tampa Museum of Art and the University Club of Tampa, the release said.
In recent years, Flowers and his investment partners have turned their attention to developing beachfront condominiums at such locations as Indian Rocks, Beard said.
"He's done it all," Beard said. "He's a pro."
Now Flowers will turn his attention to the Three Sisters Springs property. On Feb. 25, Flowers and R. James Robbins Jr., who is also a member of the Ye Mystic Krewe, filed incorporation papers with the state creating Three Sisters Springs Holding Inc.
On March 14, they bought the property from Harvey Goodman, a Miami businessman who had firmly held onto the nearly 60-acre parcel for 25 years. Some residents consider the property the crown jewel of undeveloped coast within the city limits.
Flowers has said he will issue a news release today, possibly containing details about the fate of the property.
When asked by the St. Petersburg Times in July 2002 about his drive to develop real estate, Flowers responded, "The actual development of something is very exciting - actually creating something that has a longer shelf life than me."
-- Times staff writer Barbara Behrendt contributed to this report. Raghuram Vadarevu can be reached at rvadarevu@sptimes.com or 564-3627.
[Last modified March 16, 2005, 01:31:14]
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