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Ramshackle no more at John's Pass

The Hubbard family has brought a fresh look to its growing John's Pass property, even making a parking garage look good.

By MARK ALBRIGHT, On Retail
Published August 29, 2007

MADEIRA BEACH -- It's tough being a Hubbard since the family built a 325-space parking garage that soars incongruously like the Lincoln Monument perilously close to Gulf Boulevard.

"Overbuilt monstrosity," was the consensus view in this feisty beach town.

"It got so bad I had to change grocery stores and find a church in a different parish," said Patty Hubbard, 59-year-old chief financial officer of the family tourist services empire that's been a fixture on the Pinellas beaches since the 1920s. "Now that people see the final product, they are coming around. One critic even called me to apologize for what she said."

Indeed, this $17-million waterfront attraction quadruples the Hubbards' retail space to 40,000 square feet and looks far better than the ramshackle promoters prefer "rustic" claptrap that preceded it. The project is filling up with new tourist draws including a home for the National Comedy Hall of Fame, a shipwreck artifacts store, Hurricane Pass Outfitters, a year-round haunted house, a game arcade, a 300-seat Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. restaurant and a second walkway above the boardwalk with sweeping views of the gulf.

The grand opening is Nov. 17, with the Tampa Bay area's first Gump outlet following in December.

Visually, architectural tricks shrank the garage. Balconies, multiple roof lines, bougainvillea and upper floors hidden under a tin roof make it all look smaller and warmer. Government prodding moved the foundation five feet farther from Gulf Boulevard than had been approved.

Led by matriarch Lorraine Hubbard and seven children, the clan followed the prime directive of beach real estate passed on from their late father, Wilson Hubbard: Maximize property value before government tightens the development rules again. So when the city dangled incentives to advance a master plan for John's Pass, the Hubbards took the bait.

"We knew the city wanted to make improvements to John's Pass, so we wanted to lead the upgrade and elevate the level of shops here," said Mark Hubbard, 43-year-old president of Hubbard's Marina, which took 360,000 people on fishing and sightseeing trips last year.

The complex contrasts with the weathered cedar and rusted tin look of John's Pass Village launched in 1972 by grocer Jabo Stewart. Built in 1980, the boardwalk and its rickety-looking shops could have stepped out of Olive Oyl's hometown in Popeye. Now the Hubbards anchor the place with something akin to a "new urbanist" style worthy of Seaside or Celebration.

The Hubbard family, which operates four fishing boats, a dolphin encounter, the 150-seat Friendly Fisherman restaurant and four ghost/history tours that tool around in a tricked-out hearse, is using the space to expand its own ventures and nudge tenants' merchandise higher. The garage offers $5 all-day beach parking, a lure for the Sun Cruz gambling boat that rents space from the Hubbards. It's not too bad a deal for others since the city trained visitors to feed street parking meters a dollar an hour. Still coming: a seafood market.

With construction finished, maybe street talk will shift to more pressing matters:

• Will this project inspire a tectonic shift in Pinellas beach tourist retailing that's been displaced by condos?
• Does this sort of stuff help Pinellas beach towns catch up in the tourist amenity arms race they've been losing to rival Daytona Beach, Fort Lauderdale and southwest Florida?
• Will a new look spread across John's Pass Village, a 122-store shopping district owned by 20 landlords?

Nearby merchants are wary the new venture will trigger higher rent. More redevelopment lurks. Menna Landing features five stores and a cutting-board restaurant upstairs. Another boardwalk landlord assembled a whole block for a hotel, but filed no plans.

Condo conversions made John's Pass, which attracts 2-million vacationers a year, the top beach gathering spot for those looking for something to do.

"A lot of people don't want anything to change here," said Frank Menna, who is driving piles for his project. "But this is a unique place that will end up more like a St. Armand's Circle."

How quickly and how upscale, however, is an open debate. Pinellas lost 5,000 budget-priced hotel rooms in the condo-conversion frenzy.

The few hotels replenishing the supply are higher priced. The number of guests hankering for shell art, eel skin wallets and mood rings is limited. So a transformation will take time.

"But for retailers, there's really no place left to go between Tarpon Springs and Sarasota," said Tom Powers, a curio shop owner adding a winery to his John's Pass store that sells Florida wines.

Clearwater Beach is a construction zone. Rebuilding Corey Avenue is stagnant since political upheaval over development erupted in St. Pete Beach.

"I believe in what the Hubbards are doing," said Willie Martinez, who moved his Latin Quarter House of Cigars to St. Pete Beach after he quit waiting for John's Pass redevelopment to bring a 70-year-old World War II Army Air Corps recreation center hut he rented up to snuff. "I fully intend to go back there when the dust settles. I've got my sangria in storage.

Mark Albright can be reached at albright@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8252.

[Last modified August 29, 2007, 01:59:34]