City close to parking garage deal

The first public garage on Clearwater Beach likely will have four stories and accommodate about 670 vehicles.

By CHRISTINA HEADRICK

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 30, 2000

CLEARWATER -- The city plans to build the first public parking garage on Clearwater Beach a block from the waterfront at the Pelican Walk shopping center.

It's a switch from previous plans to build a garage south of Pier 60, closer to public beaches. The city had difficulty acquiring expensive motel properties there, so officials reached a tentative deal to buy Pelican Walk's parking lot to build a four-story garage wrapped around the shopping center with about 670 spaces.

The deal could include a stipulation allowing the owners of the shopping center on the 400 block of Mandalay Avenue to build housing elsewhere on the beach.

Neither city officials nor Louie Anastasopoulos, president of the company that owns Pelican Walk, would divulge the tentative, agreed-upon sales price for Pelican Walk's land.

"We're almost there," Anastasopoulos said Tuesday. "There's definitely now going to be a deal, but we're still finalizing every detail."

Charles Siemon, the city's top redevelopment consultant, who has been handling negotiations, said: "I believe we will have a specific proposal within weeks, maybe as few as two weeks."

Next will come an appraisal of the property to verify the sales price, final negotiations of details and discussion of the project by the City Commission, which must approve the proposal, Siemon said.

As part of the deal's perks, Anastasopoulos wants the right to develop up to 37 condos or 49 hotel units anywhere on the beach. The units could have been built someday on the Pelican Walk parking lot under current city zoning, Siemon said.

The city could allow Anastasopoulos to build the units at another property he owns. Or Anastasopoulos could simply sell the right to build the units to the highest bidder. Any property owner on the city's barrier islands would be eligible to receive the credit.

Also, Pelican Walk shop owners want spaces within the garage reserved for patrons to use for free. Siemon is trying to determine which surrounding businesses want the spaces and how many would need to be reserved.

"It's still a very dynamic situation," Siemon said.

The design of the garage would mirror the bright pink facade of Pelican Walk, according to preliminary drawings. In a preferred scenario, the garage would be built over an existing Eckerd drugstore, said City Engineer Mike Quillen.

Consultants at Parsons Engineering Sciences Inc. in Tampa have crunched numbers for months to determine whether the garage is financially feasible. They must calculate how many people are likely to use the garage and predict the parking fees from it.

Then the city plans to borrow money to build the garage -- perhaps as much as $8-million -- by issuing bonds. The bonds would be paid off with future parking revenues from the garage. Siemon says that Parsons' analysis shows the garage is feasible, even though the existing Pelican Walk parking lot is often not very full.

Farther south on Clearwater Beach, plans haven't materialized yet to build a second public garage near Pier 60 or at the site of old motels at Gulfview Boulevard and Third Street. City planners want to add another 500 to 900 new parking spaces on south beach.

Two businessmen have presented rival proposals to work with the city to build a combination public parking garage and hotel at their respective properties. Neither deal is good enough for the city yet.

William Kimpton, a local lawyer who has options to purchase the Glass House and Beach Place motels, has proposed a hotel and garage near Third Street, with the city investing as much as $22,000 per new parking space created. But the city doesn't want to spend that much money, when parking spaces normally cost about $10,000 to build.

Tony Markopoulos, whose family business owns several motels including the beach's Days Inn, also has shown drawings of a massive hotel resort to city commissioners in private meetings, City Manager Mike Roberto said.

The plan was to consolidate several properties near the beach roundabout into a 500-room resort -- double the number of rooms now allowed.

City officials thought the project was just too big. Also, there weren't enough new city parking spaces created to make the city's financial participation worthwhile, Siemon said.

Neither Markopoulos nor Kimpton could be reached for comment on their proposals.

Commissioners have been pushing the city to move forward.

"All I know is the clock is ticking, and a bridge is under design," City Commissioner Ed Hooper said, referring to the city's intent to build a new Clearwater Memorial Causeway by 2003. "I want us to get one of these garages out of the way and done with before the bridge opens."

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