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Bandwagon better late than never for Biltmore

By HOWARD TROXLER
Published May 19, 2005

Save the Belleview Biltmore!

Or, to be more exact:

Stop the owner, an anonymous pension fund manager who couldn't care less, from selling a unique site listed on the National Register of Historic Places to an equally uncaring and rapacious developer.

Stop it, how?

By any means available. By hook or crook.

By some kind of determination from the town of Belleair that the Belleview Biltmore Resort & Spa is the heart of the community, and that razing it for condos and housing developments would violate the town's comprehensive plan.

Let 'em sue. Let the contract for sale expire, or be violated. The sale is probably contingent on getting all the government approvals anyway.

I know the opposing arguments: There are private property rights to consider. Besides, the place is practically falling down in spots.

And you know, if our old friends and neighbors Ma and Pa Kettle were the owners, and they were starving and being forced into bankruptcy by this Friday, the property-rights argument might be more emotionally compelling.

But that's not the situation. The situation is that the Belleview Biltmore Resort & Spa, opened in 1897, host to royalty, to presidents and prime ministers in its rich history, is nothing more to its owners than an "underperforming asset."

To them it is not part of a community. Not a symbol, or a piece of Florida's history. Not even, as is often boasted by the locals, the world's largest occupied wooden structure, at 820,000 square feet.

It's just an underperforming asset. It must be made to perform.

And who is it that will make this site "perform"?

The would-be buyer is DeBartolo Development, that king of the shopping mall, that propagator of Wal-Marts and CVS drugstores across the land.

The company bears the name of the DeBartolo family. The scion of that family, Eddie DeBartolo Jr., admitted in federal court to handing over a $400,000 bribe to former Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards, and had to give up control of his NFL team in San Francisco to his sister.

Naturally, after all that, he decided Tampa would be his home. Where better?

So, see, I am not entirely sympathetic to the "private property rights" argument. Not when it pits these folks against the interest of whatever character Florida still manages to possess.

And not when it turns out they were holding their cute little private meetings with the mayor and the town's attorney months ago, laying out their plans.

Not when that attorney somehow forgot to make a really, really loud public disclosure that his firm had also done legal work for DeBartolo Development.

No wonder this whole episode started in the town of Belleair with such a curious lack of fire from the political leadership. Golly, too bad, but whatcha gonna do?

You ever go to downtown Tampa?

Did you see that building on the river, the one with the minarets? That building is the symbol of the city. It's the old Plant Hotel, now the centerpiece of the University of Tampa.

It's been a dump for part of its history, too. Those minarets on top? Used to be full of termites. They cost a bundle to fix.

They shoulda torn down Plant Hall, too, and thrown up condos. Why not? Why not tear everything down? That's what we did to Ybor City, the real Ybor City, in the name of urban renewal. That's what we did to the Lykes Building in downtown Tampa, and the Soreno Hotel in St. Petersburg.

Now the wind is shifting a little. Last week the town manager in Belleair issued a new memo saying, heck, maybe the project does violate our comprehensive plan. Like the conversion of Saul on the road to Damascus, better late than never.

So maybe the immediate crisis can be delayed. After that, Belleair needs to lead the local legislative delegation, the county government and who knows who else in figuring out a way to save the thing for good. If that doesn't happen, then the town deserves to be converted to condos and Wal-Marts after all. We'll all deserve it.

[Last modified May 19, 2005, 00:42:10]