Parkway may revive long-empty property

By JENNIFER GOLDBLATT

© St. Petersburg Times,
published June 25, 2001

Trivia questions of the week: What is roughly the size of four football fields and virtually empty since 1990 and has been offered as a wrestling arena, an ice skating rink and the county government center?

Hint: It is now known as the "North Suncoast Commercial Complex."

Still stumped?

How about the white elephant formerly known as Bayonet Point Mall? The "complex," which sits just north of State Road 52 on U.S. 19, is now seeing new hope of a retail revival.

Jack Drawdy, a broker with Tampa-based Ryon & Associates, says the property has been under contract for the past three months by a nationally known retailer. Naturally, he won't name any names until the ink is dry on a contract, and he says he has two other potential buyers lined up, even if that deal falls through.

Drawdy says demand has been good for the 205,000-square-foot property since January, when he got the listing.

"We've had a tremendous response," Drawdy said. "The Suncoast Parkway has opened up a Pandora's box in Pasco County. There's a lot of out-of-state investors looking at Pasco."

The site has three outparcels just outside the mall that could be used for a bank branch, a gas station or something of that size. The mall was first conceived in the 1970s as a $30-million, 1.1-million-square-foot mall -- about the size of Gulf View Square mall, which was being built less than 2 miles down the road.

By 1984, Gulf View Square was open and operating and plans for Bayonet Point Mall had shrunk to its current size. Plans for a movie or dinner theater were tossed around in the late '80s, and by 1990, the Resolution Trust Corp. had foreclosed on the property.

Two years later, a unit of General Electric bought it for $500,000 and sold it two years later to Sam and Laurice Hachem, who own the USA Flea Market across the street. In 1996, Clearwater-based real estate investor Wilder Corp. bought it.

Last year, the owners got permission from the county to scale down the project to under 40 acres -- the threshold for a commercial development of regional impact -- which released the owners from requirements to build roads and infrastructure.

The land and building are worth $1.9-million, according to the county Property Appraiser's Web site. Whoever the potential buyers are, they will have to compete with a slew of large empty spaces along U.S. 19., such as the abandoned Wal-Mart in Embassy Plaza and a 107,000-square-foot empty space caused by the closing of Montgomery Ward.

Some observers say that in the past, the difficulties in shopping the mall around has been trying to lure an anchor that wasn't already located somewhere nearby on U.S. 19 and creating a use that was unique enough to create a regional draw.

Perhaps Drawdy has overcome those challenges.

Maybe if a retail use doesn't work, the owners can go back to the drawing boards or maybe back to some suggested uses of the past. Maybe they can create a combined government center and pro wrestling arena. Now that might create a regional draw.

If, as I do, you have suffered from "can't-return-a-rented-movie-on-time-if your-life-depended-on-it-itis" and you're a Blockbuster Video customer, you may notice that your receipt these days is long enough to double as a tape measure.

Blockbuster has started using its receipts to inform those who paid late fees between Jan. 1, 1999, and April 1, 2001, that we're members of about 20 class-action suits pending against the Dallas-based company. Some of the suits also affect late fees incurred since 1992, but information on those aren't available in the store.

Allegations in the suits contend, among many things, that late fees exceed any real damages and unfairly penalize customers. If a settlement is reached, we lateaholics will get compensated in the form of discounts on movie rentals.

This made me chuckle: If past behavior is any indicator of future performance, we're likely to return late those movies that we rent with our vouchers, racking up yet more late fees. (Incidentally, late fees totaled about $795-million for Blockbuster last year and accounted for about 16 percent of total revenues.)

Randy Hargrove,a company spokesman, stressed the efforts the company has made to curb rental offenses: printing due dates on receipts, giving verbal reminders, making 95 percent of the inventory five-evening rentals and extending due dates for 12 hours.

Those who paid late fees between April 1, 1992, and April 1, 1999, need to fill out a Class Settlement Claim form, available at www.blockbuster.com or by calling 1-800-224-2703 by Dec. 15.

If you don't know exactly how much you paid, "estimate as closely as you can," suggests Hargrove. The company will cross reference claim forms with its database. But apparently they can't do it for those who don't fill out claim forms.

"It's difficult when you're talking about many millions of customers," he said.

Oh, and by the way, Blockbuster isn't changing its late-fee policy. Customers who don't turn in movies or games on time automatically have rental extended for an equivalent time and price. So if you return a five-night rental late, you're charged for another five-night rental.

Don't forget. You wouldn't rack up any late fees.

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