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Hotel planned at former site of Showboat
By AMELIA DAVIS © St. Petersburg Times, published March 21, 2000 LARGO -- After years of negotiations, an unsightly lot along busy Ulmerton Road may soon give way to a hotel, fast-food restaurant and gas station. The county has approved the project, which is to be built on the old Showboat Dinner Theater site near the St. Petersburg-Clearwater Airport. Al Navaroli, development review services manager for Pinellas County, said plans call for a 79-room SpringHill Suites Hotel, a Chick-fil-A and a Hess gas and convenience store on the 3.5-acre tract. The county owns the former Showboat site, where, for 28 years, locals and tourists enjoyed buffets of chicken casserole, sliced ham and baked fish followed by stage productions of popular musicals and mysteries. The county leases the site to the airport. The county shut the Showboat down in 1995 when owners failed to come up with $65,000 in back rent. Since then, the property has deteriorated as a series of interested tenants announced plans to build there but later changed their minds. Airport manager Jim Howes said all that remains before this project gets under way is to determine who owns a strip of right of way along the tract's northeast border. "The deed shows it belongs to the state," Howes said. "'But we believe it was transferred back to the county when (the new) Roosevelt Boulevard was built." Developers Crosslantic Partners Inc., formerly FSU Trent Inc., need the right of way for the hotel's restaurant, said Howes. Crosslantic's Clearwater lawyer, Nathan Hightower, could not be reached Monday. Howes said Crosslantic Partners, which owned a share of the Showboat by virtue of a $50,000 loan to the paddleboat-shaped theater's previous owner, has been paying $84,000 in rent to the county since 1996. Once the project is developed, the county also will garner 3 percent of the businesses' revenue, Howes said. "We would like to see construction out there started yesterday," said Howes, who believes ground could be broken as soon as late April. "There needs to be something on that site."
 © St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved. 
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