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Talk of the Bay

Hotels victims of housing slowdown, too

By Times staff and wires
Published October 30, 2006

The housing slowdown put a lid on more than home prices. Hotel prices, which had been driven by swarms of beach luxury condo/hotel developers, have stabilized at about $79,000 a room across the Tampa Bay market. That's slightly above the national median and the same as a year ago, according to Marcus & Millichap, a brokerage that specializes in commercial property. "The flippers are pretty much gone from the beaches," said Tony DeGeorge, president of Greene Canfield DeGeorge, a Clearwater hotel broker. He says $100,000-a-room deals still go through for properties in the right spots.

Gandy condos sailing right along

The former Imperial Yacht Basin, on the Tampa side of the Gandy Bridge, was a cash cow for St. Petersburg developer Grady Pridgen. Now it's Tampa developer Ed Oelschlaeger's turn to milk profits. Pridgen sold the property at a sweet markup to Oelschlaeger last year for $54-million. Last week Oelschlaeger's project, New Port Tampa Bay, announced $40-million in condo sales in three months. Floridians have been bailing from condos after last year's feeding frenzy. But Oelschlaeger says his project has sea legs, owing to its waterfront view.

Numbers don't lie: Forum is happening

Revenue and earnings aren't the only numbers that can tell you how a business is doing. Since it opened 10 years ago this month, the St. Pete Times Forum has sold 1.36-million hot dogs, hosted 600 concerts and bid good luck to 24,000 graduates. That's according to the Tampa Downtown Partnership, which released the numbers last week. We extend our sincere sympathy to whichever intern was asked to calculate 10 years' worth of stitches from game injuries (11,862, if you were wondering).

Strategy needed in China dealings

Piracy is a threat to Americans eager to outsource software programming and other information technology work to China. Here's some expert advice: Keep your Chinese workers blind. No, it's not some bizarre, eye-gouging cult. Speakers at last week's China Expo in Tampa suggested splitting work among different firms so that patent stealers can't assemble a usable whole. If you don't protect your core technology, it can quickly become public domain in China's go-go business climate.

[Last modified October 30, 2006, 05:51:40]