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Talk of the bay: Trump buyers will unite in condo criticism

By Times Staff
Published October 11, 2007

Buyers who plunked down millions of dollars to reserve condos in Trump Tower Tampa plan to vent frustrations and plot strategy at a meeting Oct. 24 at the Centre Club in Tampa's Westshore district. The meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. Trump Tower is a proposed 52-story luxury high-rise that remains little more than an empty lot 2 1/2 years after its sales kickoff. To RSVP, call Don Wallace at (941) 780-5030.

PBS&J boss guilty in campaign scam

A former chairman of PBS&J, the Tampa-based engineering consulting company, has pleaded guilty to charges he illegally funneled campaign contributions from employees to candidates he expected to help win the company contracts. Richard Wickett, head of the firm from 2002 to 2005, was the second PBS&J chairman to run afoul of the Federal Elections Commission. H. Michael Dye was sentenced to a year's probation on similar charges. PBS&J does business with government agencies and helped build many Florida highways. Its contributions ranged from $201,000 to $400,000 and went to such candidates as U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez and President Bill Clinton. A third executive, chief financial officer Scott DeLoach, is serving eight years for embezzling $36-million from PBS&J.

Exact job-loss tally subject to debate

What's really happening at Market Street Mortgage? The FDIC, now running the company as receiver, is telling two very different stories. David Bell, who is acting as Market Street president, notified the state's Agency for Workforce Innovation that the company is shutting down its Clearwater facility in December and that all 182 employees will be out of a job because of the downturn in the mortgage lending business and the failure of Market Street's parent, Georgia-based NetBank. FDIC spokesman Rickey McCullough said only 53 people are losing their jobs as the agency continues to seek a buyer. Stay tuned.

Hotel rooms lost more than thought

Pinellas tourism boosters worried about hotels being torn down or turned into condos often cited a figure of 5,000 rooms that disappeared from the lodging inventory. A survey released by the county's tourism department Wednesday shows it likely was worse. From July 2004 to July 2007, 4,200 rooms vanished, more than 1,200 in Clearwater Beach. The kicker: Lots more went away in the two years before 2004 as tourism tanked after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

[Last modified October 10, 2007, 23:21:09]