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Will plan bring end to Dunedin eyesore?

Officials say they are "cautiously optimistic" about a plan for the site of the unsightly tower between Douglas Avenue and the Pinellas Trail.

By VANESSA DE LA TORRE
Published March 30, 2006

DUNEDIN - The bulky, unfinished concrete tower that symbolized a downtown development gone awry might soon get a serious tweak.

Financial planner Dennis Martino sold the property between the Pinellas Trail and Douglas Avenue for $2.21-million in January. The sale came several months after the city placed a stop work order on construction because of building code violations.

The new owner, a New Port Richey firm called Dunedin Station Development LLC, plans to turn the property into 18 condominiums with some commercial space.

"We're cautiously optimistic," Dunedin community services director Kevin Campbell said.

Dunedin Station Development shares the same address with Costa Homes, which was the original contractor for the failed project, said Bob Ironsmith, the city's economic development director. And what ended up being built was "a major deviation" from the initial plans submitted to the city, he said.

The offending tower, which was attached to the historic Honey House, also became a point of tension for residents and commissioners concerned that developers were changing Dunedin's small-town environment.

Under the new proposal, Dunedin Station would be three stories tall, with restaurants on the ground level and condominiums on the upper two floors, according to a tentative plan submitted to the city this week. The estimated cost for the project is $2-million, though it's unclear whether that involves demolishing some or all of the tower.

Another question is what will happen to the Honey House, the decades-old yellow home that lost much of its historic value during construction of the tower last year.

Tuesday, a receptionist at Costa Homes said Paul Bakkalapulo, who is listed as an applicant and representative for the project, had no comment on the new plan. And Martino, who used to run his business from the Honey House, did not return phone calls.

From the start, Dunedin Station Square, planned just south of Main Street along the Pinellas Trail, was supposed to expand downtown. Wedged in an area that already included small antique stores, hair and nail salons and a bike shop, the mixed-use development called for restaurants and office space. The Honey House was intended as its anchor.

After Martino partnered with the city, he turned over enough property for a dozen brick-paved parking spaces. A conceptual rendering showed that Victorian-style architecture would dominate the project, which might include a water fountain, immaculate landscaping and a bicyclist wearing a blue helmet and sporty shades riding down the trail and past the station.

Nowadays, a stroll around the property reveals that the conceptual drawing has been knocked off its wooden supports. It leans against a chain-link fence that has been ambushed with weeds, and behind the sign is the reality that has irked residents and nearby business owners: a grey, four-story boxy building, informally called "The Eyesore" around town.

"The unsightly visual on Douglas," Ironsmith recently joked.

Now, having seen the tentative plan, he said the new owner has a good concept, though the process of getting city and public approval is a long one, notwithstanding the big tower that remains on the property.

"It's a key piece because it's adjacent to the trail," Ironsmith said. "We certainly want to make sure it's done right."

In an interview earlier this month, Campbell, the community services director, emphasized that the goal is "to clean up that site completely and get an effective development in there."

Even if that means demolishing the Honey House: "I think there have been alterations to it, where maybe they went too far," Campbell said.

"It's been drastically altered, obviously," said Vincent Luisi, executive director of the Dunedin Historical Society. "A portion of the house has been taken away. It would need major renovation to be brought back. But anything can be restored. ... You need the time, you need the money, you need the effort to do it."

Luisi said the Florida Victorian home was built around 1910 by Thomas J. Zimmerman, part of an early Dunedin family who dug water wells in town and had a grocery delivery service. Later, Robert Boyd, a well-known station agent for the railroad system, lived in the house with his family of nine kids throughout the late 1940s and 1960s, he said.

"It's a lot of memories to a lot of people to a time that goes back to the '40s, '50s," Luisi said.

Richard Ralph Roehl, an artist from Los Angeles who has lived in Dunedin for several years, said he cherished the days when the venerable yellow home with a white porch swing was not part of some aesthetic horror show.

"You have this monster sitting there for months and months," Roehl complained to the St. Petersburg Times recently. He saw the abandoned project as an example of big business busting into a small town.

Lynda Ward, who co-owns A Perfect Pair of Nails Salon and Spa, right across the street from Honey House, mostly saw what looked like a yellow dollhouse with a prison tower looming over its back.

"It's really ugly," Ward said, peering out her front door. And not exactly the best conversation starter with clients. They all ask about it.

"Gawd, it's horrible," they say.

"We're like, we have no idea," Ward said.

Vanessa de la Torre can be reached at 445-4167 or vdelatorre@sptimes.com

[Last modified March 30, 2006, 06:44:59]