Longtime event planner Midge Trubey has moved her flower shop and sold a popular event venue.
By SHARON L. BOND, Times Staff Writer
Published October 23, 2005
ST. PETERSBURG - Ripples from the sale of two businesses by longtime event planner Midge Trubey will result in a small wave of activity, including:
/ a new shopping center on the city's north side,
/ another downtown condominium project,
/ the closing of a popular event venue,
/ the move of a florist, and, eventually,
/ a new home for a catering company.
The Personal Touch Florist, which was at 8800 Fourth St. N, already moved. It opened for business at 2140 Ninth Ave. N last week.
"I've spent 21 years on this corner," said Trubey of the Fourth Street location as she was packing up its contents. It was a house that had a small grocery in the front when she bought it. She established a catering business there as well as the florist. She also owned Mansion by the Bay at 145 Fourth Ave. NE downtown.
Dan Harvey Jr., who lives near Mansion by the Bay while waiting for his condominiums in Parkshore Plaza to be finished, told Trubey last year that he loved the mansion. It serves as a venue for weddings, receptions and other special occasions. Trubey has owned it since 1989.
"He said he would be out walking in the neighborhood and see people all dressed up (going to mansion activities). He would see their silhouettes dancing on the curtains."
"I said, "Dan if you love it so much, why don't you buy it?' And he did," Trubey, 56, said.
However, with St. Petersburg's downtown renaissance going strong, the property is too valuable to leave as an entertainment venue in a 1901 structure, she said.
In the past six to eight years, more than half a dozen condominium towers have been built downtown along with some smaller complexes. Arriving with the new luxury homes was BayWalk, a entertainment/shopping center and a new Publix grocery in the University Village shopping center. Even more luxury towers are planned, along with at least one hotel and the corporate headquarters for Progress Energy.
Harvey, 54, is teaming up with the List Group of Tampa to build what he calls a boutique condominium project.
"Mansion by the Bay has been a great place for a long time," Harvey said. "It is a nice little venue. But when you can build a 15- to 20-story building there," it is a better use for the land.
"The zoning allows for density, and there is no density there now," Harvey said.
Plans are in the preliminary stages, but John Lum, a co-owner of List Group, said the condominium building probably would be 15 to 18 stories high and have 30-some units.
"It definitely will be luxury," Lum, 44, said, though he could not quote sales prices on the units. "It's too hard to tell. Construction costs are going up too much these days."
However, he estimated the condos probably would sell for over $1-million and be between 2,000 to 3,000 square feet with water views. The name of the project probably will be Mansions on the Bay, Lum said.
Trubey asked Harvey for a year for the deal on Mansion by the Bay to go through to accommodate bookings the mansion already had. It will close at the end of this year.
Those involved wanted to keep things quiet because of the year's wait, but rumors got out.
"The rumors were crazy," Trubey said. One was that the mansion already is closed.
"It is not. We have a lunch program there. It is open to the public Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. It will be until the end of the year."
The craziest rumor had to do with Trubey.
A woman called her and was so delighted to get her on the phone. She heard the mansion was sold because Trubey died. Trubey was doing her wedding.
"She was hysterical. She said, "I'm getting married and Midge just dropped dead. What am I going to do?' "
Trubey is alive and well, she assures everyone. But her businesses are changing, and she will be doing a lot less in them.
"The flower shop is going in one direction, and the catering is going in another. That is a good thing," she said.
Since the Fourth Street location closed, Trubey's catering has been shifted to the mansion. When it closes, she must look for a new location.
Mariano Cibran hopes she might consider one of the shops in the shopping plaza he is building on the site where Personal Touch stands. When it is demolished in November, he will take that site plus a vacant lot next door and build the four-bay shopping center. His Dolce Properties is headquartered in St. Petersburg.
"It will be a 4,700-square-foot plaza with four retail bays," he said. The only tenant so far is Fantastic Sam's, the hair salon at 1100 94th Ave. N that Cibran owns.
"It will be Art Deco and Miami Beachish," Cibran, 31, said of the design. "There is a lot of Mediterranean Revival on Fourth Street. We don't want to saturate it. We will do something with brighter colors."
Cibran said after he got a contract on the vacant lot next to Personal Touch, he approached Trubey about buying her place. She agreed to it, she said, thinking this second unsolicited offer must be some sort of sign.
Trubey will scale back her working hours and let relatives and co-workers step up. Her company provides lunches for schools and manages cafeterias for colleges as well as sells flowers, caters and books events.
Her first business was as a personal services company for rock stars she said she founded with a loan of $500 from her ex-husband. She found that what most of the celebrities she met wanted was food cooked fresh for them.
"My files go from Adam Ant through ZZ Top," she said. She traveled nationally with groups for several years but as her two children grew, she confined the business to acts coming into Florida, eventually switching to flowers and catering.
