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Yesterday's vision blurred by empty lots

By DIANE STEINLE
Published December 31, 2006

In a Jan. 1, 2006, column on the transforming power of redevelopment, I wrote this: "People who visit North Pinellas a year from now will be shocked by the differences."

Well, maybe not so shocked. That's the problem with new-year predictions. Stuff happens.

A year ago, speculators were gobbling up land here, and their appetite seemed insatiable. North Pinellas looked like the promised land, and everyone wanted a piece of it. Would-be developers streamed through government offices with fancy artists' drawings of projects they planned to build.

Their starry-eyed optimism rubbed off on government officials, who saw in the future not only an expanded tax base to help cover the cost of government, but also, finally, a turnaround in places where few shiny new projects had been built lately - places like downtown Clearwater, the east side of Largo, parts of Clearwater Beach and old mobile home parks.

In that column a year ago, I forecast that the place most transformed in 2006 would be Clearwater Beach. The old Clearwater Beach Hotel had been torn down already to make way for the new Sandpearl resort, and developers were poised to build new hotels and condos up and down S Gulfview Boulevard, starting in spring 2006.

The column also predicted that the sounds of construction would ring across downtown Clearwater, where numerous residential and retail projects were supposed to get under way during 2006. A movie theater and a public marina were proposed, too.

The column predicted that the fate of the Belleview Biltmore Resort & Spa in Belleair and Schiller International University in Dunedin would be sealed in 2006, and that construction of a much-desired, mixed-use "town center" would begin at the old Bay Area Outlet Mall in Largo.

So here we are at the end of 2006, and the picture has dimmed. If this isn't the bust that follows a boom, it is at least a sobering slowdown.

Now, those pretty artists' drawings are nailed to posts erected in front of vacant lots where there is no movement except the wind swirling the dust. Projects large and small appear dead in the water, and "For Sale" signs sprout like weeds.

Developers avoid talking about missed construction deadlines, or they try to put a good face on changes in their plans that will result in fewer units, smaller units or delayed construction phases. They call it "right sizing" for today's market.

New construction hasn't stopped, but it has become the province of those developers with the deepest pockets and the most experience. Witness Mike Cheezem's continued march on Clearwater Beach. His Sandpearl hotel and condominium tower rise steadily on Mandalay Avenue. On S Gulfview Boulevard, only a ragged chunk of the old Holiday Inn Sunspree remains, to be replaced starting early next year with Cheezem's Marquesas condominium.

What about the other beach projects that were supposed to kick off in 2006? Next to the Marquesas site, a lovely sign announces "Enchantment - Emerging in November." Make that November 2006. But no Enchantment rises yet on Clearwater Beach.

Next door, the Clearwater Grande condo tower was supposed to replace the squat Quality Hotel, but those plans are shelved for now. Nearby, the 13-story Entrada condo project is on hold.

Where the Adam's Mark Hotel once welcomed guests, a developer's plans for a condo-hotel have been delayed, though there is at least a snazzy sales center touting the vision of the Indigo Beach Residences & Suites.

On down S Gulfview, there is no sign of the Marbella and Sienna Sands condominiums - plans on hold. The old Days Inn eyesore is gone, thankfully, but property owner Kiran Patel is talking with the city about allowing the empty lot to be used for temporary beach parking.

Site work has begun at last on the project that was the first approved by the city: the Hyatt resort, now called the Aqualea Resort and Residences on S Gulfview.

Despite the delays on beach building projects - and I've touched on only the biggest ones - there has, in fact, been a beach transformation of sorts: The south beach streets are a mess, thanks to the city's commencement of work on its Beach Walk pedestrian plaza. Watch for streets blocked by rubble, detours and lines of traffic.

A city streetscaping project along Cleveland Street, rather than some private developer's project, is the source of most change in downtown Clearwater. The other significant activity downtown is Opus South's commencement of work on its 25-story condo and retail project where Calvary Baptist Church was razed this year.

However, the promise of a movie theater downtown will not be fulfilled - developer Elias Jafif axed the idea just weeks ago - and a long-expected condo-retail project at Station Square still is not built. Neither has construction begun on a string of residential projects just north of downtown.

The construction slowdown is apparent outside of Clearwater, too. No new town center has been built where people once shopped at Bay Area Outlet Mall in Largo, and another year has passed without major redevelopment projects in downtown Largo.

Two valued historic structures, the Belleview Biltmore Resort & Spa in Belleair and Schiller International University in Dunedin, still face uncertain futures dependent on private parties' resources and desire to preserve them.

There is still no sign of an affordable housing project that was planned on Terra Excavating property just west of Ridgecrest. In fact, in this kind of market, it is doubtful that much new affordable housing will be built, though hopes were high in early 2006.

One bright spot, for those who rent, is that the conversion of rental apartments to condominiums appears to have slowed in the second half of 2006.

In the next year, we likely will learn whether the 2006 slowdown in North Pinellas is just a temporary market adjustment or a return to the moribund '90s. Which will it be? I won't go out on that limb.

One of the predictions in my January 2006 column was fully realized - unfortunately. I wrote, "North Pinellas County will lose some people because of the rampant changes expected in 2006 - people who don't like living here anymore or can't afford it. Their places will be taken by new arrivals, continuing to stream into Florida."

Throughout Pinellas in 2006, we heard the desperate stories of people who said they were packing up or at least considering leaving because they can no longer afford to live here.

But also during 2006, Florida gained 321,697 new residents - people moving to the land of sunshine to build their future. With them will come change of some sort, no doubt about that.

Diane Steinle can be reached at steinle@sptimes.com.

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[Last modified December 31, 2006, 08:23:52]