Madeira Beach Seafood says its site is being sold, and with property so expensive in Pinellas, it is looking north to Citrus County.
By CATHERINE E. SHOICHET
Published March 22, 2006
MADEIRA BEACH - One of the gulf's largest grouper distributors is considering packing up its Pinellas County operations and moving to Citrus County.
Madeira Beach Seafood president Bobby Spaeth said Wednesday that the roughly 3-acre site where his company's fish house sits is up for sale. When it sells, the company will be forced to relocate, and Spaeth said property in Pinellas County is too pricey.
"We can't afford to stay here with the property values and the taxes. ... Anything in Pinellas County on the water, we can't afford," he said.
Madeira Beach Seafood isn't alone. The skyrocketing cost of waterfront property in Pinellas County already has pushed other seafood houses off the waterfront. The John's Pass area, once home to a half-dozen major seafood houses, has dropped to three.
Seafood houses, the hub of any commercial fishing industry, provide fuel, bait, ice and even groceries to outbound fishermen. Upon their return, the fishermen sell their catch to the seafood houses, which pack the fish on ice, store it in coolers and then distribute it via trucks to fresh fish markets in Florida and around the country.
Last year Madeira Beach lost another major fish house, Double D Seafood, according to City Manager Jill Silverboard. A townhouse residential project has been proposed in its place.
Spaeth said the same may happen to Madeira Beach Seafood.
The company leases its site from M.H.H. Enterprises Inc. of Madeira Beach. The property was assessed at $1.65-million by the Pinellas County Property Appraiser last year, but Spaeth said it's worth more than $25-million and likely to be sold to a luxury condo developer.
With a sale possible within a year, Spaeth, like many Tampa Bay homeowners priced out of the white hot real estate market, is looking north.
A proposed port project on the Cross Florida Barge Canal in Citrus County, just north of Progress Energy's nuclear power plant, might be a perfect fit, he said.
The port would be part of Hollinswood, a development combining mining, an industrial/port center, waterfront retail and homes.
That project is the brainchild of Dixie Hollins, a well-known figure in local business circles with a familiar name inside Pinellas County. His grandfather was Pinellas' first superintendent of school s in 1912; a high school in St. Petersburg is named in his honor.
Spaeth said the idea of relocating to Citrus was raised during a recreational offshore grouper fishing trip with Hollins last summer.
Hollins, president of Citrus Mining and Timber, told Spaeth he was making plans for how he would use his 1,500-acre property in Citrus once his company finishes its limerock mining operations there. Spaeth discussed the difficulty that commercial fish houses face in finding affordable waterfront real estate.
Since then, the former junior high school classmates at Tyrone Junior High School in St. Petersburg have discussed the possibility of Madeira Beach Seafood's relocation several times, but "it's very preliminary," Spaeth said.
Madeira Beach Seafood has occupied the same waterfront location for 14 years. The company has about 20 employees on-site and employs about 200 more including commercial fishing captains and crews.
A Citrus location would not be ideal, Spaeth said, because many of the company's employees are from Pinellas, and the barge canal site would require commercial fishermen to travel 70 miles farther north.
But in many ways, he said, moving north may be the best option. Commercial boats will go where they can find a fish house to process their catch, he said, and all of the Pinellas fish houses will likely close within the next three years.
Hollins submitted plans for his project to Citrus County officials last month. They require a large-scale amendment to the county's comprehensive plan, which is slated to go before the county's Planning and Development Review Board for the first time in a workshop on April 6.
Spaeth said he may attend and ask officials to do everything they can to accelerate the approval process.
"If we're going to (move), we'd want to do it as soon as possible ... because we're in such a time crunch," he said .
Times staff writer Stephen Nohlgren contributed to this story. Catherine E. Shoichet can be reached at cshoichet@sptimes.com or 352 860-7309.
Times staff writer Stephen Nohlgren contributed to this story. Catherine E. Shoichet can be reached at or 352 860-7309.
[Last modified March 23, 2006, 00:08:22]
