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Letter to the editor

Big area landowners hold on - for now

With no shareholders to please, they can wait for a market rebound.

By JAMES THORNER, Times Staff Writer
Published October 9, 2007

Large area landowners who once might have envied the real estate development success of St. Joe Co., Florida's largest private landowner, viewed Monday's announced cutbacks and plans to sell 100,000 acres by the publicly traded company with a renewed sense of relief.

Better them than us.

At least once a month, rancher Robert Thomas gets a call from representatives of venture capital firms or hedge funds looking to diversify their portfolio with a slab of Florida farm land.

Blessed with 17,000 acres in Hillsborough, Pasco and Hernando counties that he holds in common with his sisters, Thomas has refused so far to take the bait.

"I guess we could dump our property and take the cash and go play," said Thomas, whose family is the Tampa Bay area's largest private landowner.

"You never know. People come here all the time and try to buy our property."

But unlike St. Joe Co., which announced it's divesting itself of 100,000 acres centered in the Florida Panhandle, cutting 260 jobs and outsourcing 500 more to others, Thomas is under no pressure to please faceless shareholders.

He's not alone. Concentrated in the hands of private companies, shielded from high taxes by Florida's generous greenbelt law, most of the region's large nongovernmental land holdings will likely ride out the real estate slump under current ownership.

"We're holding on to it as long as we can keep it operating in agriculture," said Ron Edwards, president of Evans Properties Inc, owner of 3,500 acres of groves and pasture in east Pasco.

"We're not currently planning on anything."

In fact, land once viewed as sure targets for new homes and shopping centers is reverting to agricultural owners. Builders and developers are dumping options on land they'd planned to buy when home sales were hot.

Pulte, the home-building giant, did as much when it curtailed plans to develop more than 10,000 lots on the 5,000-acre Wiregrass Ranch in Wesley Chapel.

Other deals to buy Pasco's Kirkland and Cannon ranches, thousands of acres in all, also fell through.

One of the biggest land divestitures announced this year is an intragovernmental deal between Pinellas and Pasco counties. Pinellas wants to shed the 12,500-acre Cross Bar Ranch north of State Road 52, land it's nurtured as a source of well water since the 1970s. Pasco is trying to rustle up millions of dollars to buy it.

Nevertheless, big private landowners face their own financial exposure in the form of estate taxes. It's a problem the Thom-ases have managed to avoid.

When Robert Thomas' father died last month, the tax man didn't take his accustomed bite. That's because the younger generation of Thomases bought out the older generation decades ago.

Chances are, the family, best know for Thonatosassa's Two River's Ranch, will stay in cattle at least until the real estate market turns around.

In the meantime, family members can comfort themselves with royalties from Zephyrhills Natural Spring Water, whose source is on their land.

"The Thomas family has a deep-seated connection to the land for four generations," Thomas said.

James Thorner can be reached at thorner@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3313. Read and comment on his (Un)Real Estate blog at blogs.tampabay.com/realestate.

[Last modified October 8, 2007, 22:44:26]