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Excitement builds as developer list pared

In "perhaps the biggest decision in city history," three developers will compete to turn a corner of Bullard Parkway into a live-work-play village.

By JOSH ZIMMER
Published March 20, 2005

TEMPLE TERRACE - One is an up-and-coming player in the development big leagues. The other two are major companies with billions of dollars in projects to their name.

In about three months, Temple Terrace should know the company that will handle the biggest project in city history - the redevelopment of the southeast corner of N 56th Street and Bullard Parkway.

The city's future partner in this effort will be one of three finalists the City Council chose Tuesday night:

* Trammell Crow, one of the world's largest commercial real estate companies.

* Downtown Renaissance Alliance, a partnership of housing giant Lennar and LNR Property Corp.

* Unicorp National Developments Inc., a growing company but the smallest in the bunch.

The redevelopment project aims to create a self-sustaining mix of homes, stores, businesses, parks and public buildings that will attract new residents to this 80-year-old planned community while generating millions in future tax dollars.

In recent weeks, the project's estimated cost doubled from $150-million to $300-million. The developer would be responsible for the vast majority of the cost, with the city picking up about $60-million of the tab.

"We think they all (the finalists) can do the heavy lifting . . . can complete the project," city project director Ralph Bosek told council members.

The project has captivated the imagination of Temple Terrace, a tree-lined community of 23,000 that prides itself on having a small-town atmosphere. Whether they're for or against it, residents are heavily invested.

City officials in two years have spent about $20-million in taxpayer money buying properties at the corner to control development there as much as possible. The preliminary plans also reflect residents' desires, related to planners last year.

In addition, people weighed in at the ballot box. The project was the major issue in last year's elections. Its supporters won handily.

"I'm totally blown out of the water by what's been done so far," said Ronald Govin, who was elected to his first term on the council in November.

Now comes the toughest phase to date.

Officials last year set up an exacting process for selecting a developer. The document used to solicit interest from potential developers was a 27-page pamphlet demanding highly detailed corporate information. One of the six developers to submit qualifications dropped out because it did not want to reveal so much about company finances.

Over the next three months, the finalists will sit down with teams of planners, architects and engineers in hopes of generating a knockout proposal. The winner will buy the land from Temple Terrace. Then it will oversee the development of hundreds of homes and dozens of stores and offices.

"I view this as perhaps the biggest decision in city history," Bosek said. "We have to be right every time."

All the finalists have experience in building mixed-use town center projects, a track record that undid the fourth remaining candidate - Villagio - Bosek said. The partners in Villagio never had worked on the kind of project Temple Terrace wants.

Putting their best proposals together will cost "well over six figures," said Robert Abberger, Trammell Crow's project director. But with competitive spirits running high, no one is balking.

"We're going to spend whatever it takes," said T. Austin Simmons, Unicorp's vice president of development.

Who are Trammell Crow, the Downtown Renaissance Alliance and Unicorp?

* Trammel Crow, based in Dallas, is one of the world's largest commercial real estate companies, with more than 6,400 employees in the United States and Canada.

It has several high-profile mixed-use projects under its belt, including one that transformed a blighted area of Dallas with 2,000 new homes and 50,000 square feet of retail and office space. The company also handled two Tampa projects: the Tampa Marriott Waterside and the redevelopment of Port Ybor with more than 800,000 square feet of office and warehouse space.

"Temple Terrace is a great niche community" with the potential to become a model for "live-work-play" developments, Abberger said.

The biggest threat to the project is building more housing than the area needs, he said. Rising construction costs are another concern, but "we think there's an opportunity to keep this in line," he said.

* The Downtown Renaissance Alliance is a partnership of Lennar Corp. - a Miami-based Fortune 500 company and one of the country's largest residential builders - and LNR Property Corp. LNR, an offshoot of Lennar based in Miami Beach, handles real estate management and investment.

The LNR project most closely resembling the one in Temple Terrace is a redevelopment of the former naval air base in South Weymouth, Mass., said Randy Weisburd, vice president of LNR's Florida commercial property groups. That project envisions nearly 3,000 new homes over the next 12 years, as well as 2,000 to 3,000 light-industrial and high-tech jobs.

Like his rival project managers, Weisburd praised the city for buying the land and mobilizing the community behind a vision. It will make the master developer's job easier, he said. "I think they're going to get a better result because of the designed focus."

* Unicorp of Orlando is the only private company among the finalists. But it's growing rapidly, with a list of clients that includes Disney and at least two Orlando area cities.

The company's signature project to date is Baldwin Park Village Center, a mixed-use effort of 177 apartments and 200,000 square feet of office and retail space on the site of the former Orlando Naval Training Center. It also is the master developer on a smaller town center in Casselberry.

At Disney's Celebration, Unicorp is developing the commercial development near the entrance. Though it's not a huge project, getting hired by Disney is not easy, Simmons said.

Temple Terrace was smart to be hands-on and choosy, he said.

"That piece of property more easily could have been a Lowes, and the city of Temple Terrace would have been locked into what Largo has got, Pinellas Park has got: no identity."

- Josh Zimmer covers Temple Terrace and the University of South Florida area. He can be reached at 269-5314 or zimmer@sptimes.com

[Last modified March 19, 2005, 08:44:59]