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300 acres owned by feuding Geracis could be auctioned

A high bidder would receive property that could be rezoned for the county's biggest shopping complex north of Citrus Park.

By BILL COATS
Published June 9, 2006

LUTZ - The most valuable cow pasture in north Hillsborough County will be auctioned at the County Courthouse unless an appeals court intervenes.

Courthouse auctions typically sell foreclosed houses. This would be a profound, and perhaps vexing, upgrade.

How much should one bid for 300 acres where the Veterans Expressway, Van Dyke Road and N Dale Mabry Highway converge? Where a shopping center already thrives at one adjacent corner and another is under construction at a second corner? How much for land where the government has planned for half a shopping mall but the zoning still calls for agriculture?

Two years ago, the shopping center site south of this piece of land sold for $7.8-million, or $269,000 an acre. At that price, this land could be worth as much as $68-million. But the other property already was zoned for the shopping center.

And rezonings in Lutz can be fractious and unpredictable.

"The property as is, where it is, is obviously worth less," said Mark Kelly, attorney for a half-owner of the land, Nick Geraci.

The sale order by Circuit Judge Sam Pendino is the latest outcome of a bitter feud between Geraci, 55, and his brother Peter, 52. They have fought in court over:

n Whether Peter was obligated to reconsider the fairness of a 2001 deal in which the brothers divided up 164 acres they had jointly owned.

n An impromptu $500,000 payment to their longtime lawyer, which Peter included in a land sale.

n Whether Nick had the right to mow down 1,300 young pines planted by Peter at the brothers' Manatee County hunting preserve.

n Whether Nick slapped Peter's glasses off his face in a confrontation initiated by Peter.

n Whether the brothers are incapable of jointly owning an access road to their hunting preserve.

The latest dispute is the heavyweight. How can brothers like this coordinate the prime megabucks sale of their lives?

If the brothers can't, Nick wants to split the land, Kelly said. "He'd like to have his half of it and be free to do whatever he wants with it."

Peter's attorney, Mark Linsky, didn't return a St. Petersburg Times phone call.

But in a Feb. 20 hearing, Linsky told Judge Pendino, "The two brothers are so belligerent with each other, there's no way they could share ownership of a divided master plan. ...They can't share the infrastructure, the water, the sewer, the flood-plain mitigation, the wetlands mitigation, the internal road systems, the access points and many other issues as well."

Issues such as a rezoning.

Normally, the landowner in such a situation makes a top-dollar deal with a buyer, on the condition the buyer can get the zoning he wants. The final sale waits for a year or two for the rezoning to crawl through government channels.

In a sense, this land has been waiting for decades.

It was among thousands of acres in three counties the Geraci brothers inherited in the 1970s and have gradually sold off since, reaping at least $40-million. Calusa Trace, Heritage Harbor and the new Idlewild Baptist Church all sit on former Geraci land.

The Geracis knew nearly all that time that the crown jewel of their inheritance was the Dale Mabry tract. After Hillsborough County refused in 1994 to designate the land for a full-scale regional mall, the Geracis sued the county, lost and took their appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court, where they lost for good.

Yet they emerged with property that could be rezoned for Hillsborough's largest shopping complex north of Citrus Park. Rezoned, that is, after it's auctioned by the clerk of court.

Pendino ordered that the auction occur on July 17. But he postponed that indefinitely while Kelly appeals. His is the fourth Geraci v. Geraci appeal filed in the last year at the Lakeland-based 2nd District Court of Appeal.

Before judges in Tampa and Bradenton, Peter is on a winning streak. But the action has barely begun in Lakeland.

Bill Coats can be reached at 813 269-5309 or coats@sptimes.com.

[Last modified June 9, 2006, 08:50:58]