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Aging hotel industry's future still no clearer

By CRISTINA SILVA
Published January 24, 2007

The City Commission moved last week to indefinitely postpone plans to put a new development plan before voters after several local leaders said they could not support the measure.

The delay leaves the future of St. Pete Beach's aging tourism industry cloudy at best, with some hoteliers threatening to convert their properties to condominiums.

The unexpected decision also has prompted some residents to question the authority of the commission. Despite devoting a great deal of time to it in the last four years, the commission has been unsuccessful in rallying public support for a development plan it says could line Gulf Boulevard with shiny new resorts and bolster the local economy.

Residents who support development restrictions said they were shocked the city would deny them the option to vote on the plan.

"It is frustrating for a lot of us because there are areas of this city that desperately require redevelopment," said Bill Thompson, who manages his own home inspection company. "Essentially what the commission said is 'what we are going to do is decide for you.' There was no closure."

Mayor Ward Friszolowski, the only commission member to support putting the plan on the ballot by the end of last week's commission meeting, said it was unacceptable for the city not to move forward after having spent so much time on it in the last few months.

"It is unfair to the public," he said. "They are concerned with the future direction of our city and if they are wasting their time watching our commission meetings."

Constant objections

The path to a new development plan has been riddled with a constant stream of complications and objections.

In November, a voters approved a city charter amendment that lets them decide major development changes. They also repealed a development plan that the city had passed the year before. That plan was seen as hotelier friendly because it would have allowed 15-story hotels.

During the past couple of months, residents have asked the city to give voters more time to understand the development plan before putting it on the ballot. The city said it had no more time to give, because the outcome of the vote would too heavily affect businesses in the area.

Then, at the commission meeting last week, it was as if time was no longer a concern.

Friszolowski said the city should drop a lawsuit against a group of residents over whether it was legal to repeal the development plan in November, but only as long as the commission voted unanimously in favor of putting the new development plan before voters.

Commissioner Ed Ruttencutter said he did not feel comfortable putting a plan on the ballot because Florida statue required that it would still have to be discussed at two public meetings and finalized before it could be voted on. The commission was doing things out of order, he argued.

The turning point came when Tim Bogott, president of Fortune Hotels, which owns the Tradewinds Island Resorts, said he would rather continue to wait than have the plan go to voters considering the unresolved matters associated with the measure. Bogott, who did not return calls for comment for this article, had been one of the most outspoken advocates for the need to get the plan on the ballot.

The commission decided to drop the matter.

"Nobody is supporting this," said Commissioner Deborah Nicklaus. "My question is: How do you market something, how are you going to get something passed, if people with diverse opinions in the city don't want to support this?"

Harry Metz, a frequent critic of the city who is running for election in March, said the plan would not win public approval because the commission never took to heart resident's concerns about all the infrastructure problems new growth could bring.

"They have not listened to the residents. They didn't even have the hearing aid on," he said.

Struggling hotels

If any property represents the decline of St. Pete Beach's tourism industry it is the Coral Reef, with its mold-stained walls, chipped floors and exposed electrical wirings. The place was shut down three months after the Fleeting family brought it in November 2004 because it was deemed unsafe.

"You could never get a AAA rating here," said Annie Fleeting, whose family has been waiting for a new development plan so it can fix up the boarded-up property.

One of the major ideas behind a new development plan was to help hoteliers like Fleeting, who argue that they need development codes that allow them to have more rooms as an economic incentive to build hotels.

The way things are now, with hotels allowed only five stories, developers can earn more by building condos, since units can go for $500,000 a pop before the building is even built.

Fleeting said the plan discussed last week barely made it possible for hoteliers to build resorts because it allowed only 12 stories. She hopes a new plan will be presented to voters in a special election.

But that probably won't happen anytime soon. In March, two new commissioners will join the commission. City officials have said they will probably have to wait until the commissioners are settled before they can make their next move.

In the meantime, developers like Fleeting just have to keep waiting.

Cristina Silva can be reached at 727 893-8846 or csilva@sptimes.com.

[Last modified January 23, 2007, 22:17:12]