BayWalk timeline

Compiled by Times staff writer

© St. Petersburg Times, published November 12, 2000

1982

St. Petersburg creates the Intown Redevelopment Plan, which envisions redeveloping several blocks of old resort hotels downtown.

May 1986

City Council contemplates building a domed stadium in the Gas Plant neighborhood just west of downtown in an attempt to lure a Major-League baseball team. It searches for a developer to help build and manage the enormous project. A partnership between Kansas City-based J.C. Nichols Co. and Phoenix-based Elcor Cos. applies for the job, also pitching a companion downtown shopping mall project. They call their joint venture the Bay Plaza Cos.

June 19, 1986

City Council votes to name Bay Plaza as the manager of that proposed stadium and the city's "master developer" for the downtown.

July 22, 1986

Three Council members and a group of business leaders tour the Kansas City Country Club Plaza development of the J.C. Nichols Co. It has upscale retailers and brick sidewalks. "Magnificent, awe-inspiring," gushes Council member Chuck Fisher. "Give them (St. Petersburg's) downtown and turn them loose. Let them go." Because shoppers there travel hundreds of miles to Country Club Plaza, city officials hope to attract shoppers to St. Petersburg from as far as Naples and Orlando with a similar project.

Nov. 21, 1986

The city approves in principal Bay Plaza's plan to demolish and redevelop six blocks of downtown and to manage The Pier, the Bayfront Center and the prospective domed stadium, which it has decided for sure to build. The city will have to take much of the property from its owners by force and sell it to Bay Plaza.

Feb. 12, 1987

City Council signs a temporary agreement with Bay Plaza to market and manage The Pier and Bayfront Center (both being renovated) and the Florida Suncoast Dome, now under construction.

April 1987

After the city extends the deadline for negotiations six times, Bay Plaza president G. Neil Elsey III comes to town. Bay Plaza plans to build two new shopping plazas, one downtown and one near the new stadium. It also will establish a tree-lined parkway connecting the stadium and the downtown redevelopment zone along Central Avenue and First avenues N and S and build three downtown parking garages with restaurants, stores and offices on the ground floors. The contracts would knit the city and Bay Plaza with complex financial ties, with Bay Plaza a creditor, tenant, profit-sharer, construction supervisor, promoter and facilities manager. Storefronts throughout the city are to be given a unified "theme" renovation.

May 21, 1987

City Council signs a 13-year contract with Bay Plaza, calling it the largest project in the city's history. The city estimates it will contribute $39-million and that Bay Plaza will invest between $81-million and $97-million. City Manager Robert Obering deviates briefly from his customary cautiousness, telling the council, "We're going to make it. We're going to make this a success."

August 1987

The City Council declines residents' request to designate the Soreno Hotel as a historic landmark. The 1920s boom-era hotel is within the Bay Plaza redevelopment area, and Bay Plaza leaders have hinted they might want to demolish it. Peter Belmont, a lawyer spearheading the citizen effort, says the council cares more about development than preservation.

Oct. 4, 1987

The St. Petersburg Times reveals that the day before City Council approved the $135-million contract with the Bay Plaza Cos., Elsey resigned as head of a real-estate trust whose trading price had collapsed after it lost millions of dollars.

March 20, 1988

Elsey announces that he intends to complete the Bay Plaza project by 1992.

April 7, 1988

Bay Plaza releases its preliminary plans for remaking downtown. The cost has risen to between $140-million and $160-million, with Bay Plaza paying up to $120-million, and the city paying the rest. Unnamed department stores and a hotel near the domed stadium are shown on the plans, as are a two-story circular plaza overlooking Tampa Bay, a tram to move people around the downtown and pedestrian sky bridges. Bay Plaza plans 1-million square feet of retail space. Elsey announces Bay Plaza will demolish the Soreno, saying, "We cannot work with it. We tried." In all 16 businesses, including shops on Beach Drive, are to be torn down. A group called Save Our St. Petersburg begins protesting.

June 1988

A Bay Plaza spokeswoman says the company is "committed" to including a movie theater as part of its expansive downtown development.

July 1988

Bay Plaza officials insist they also must acquire and demolish Jannus Landing, including the 100-year-old Detroit Hotel. They say they also have their eye on the Maas Brothers department store (later to become Florida International Museum). Both are outside the six-block redevelopment area set aside for the project, but Bay Plaza says it needs the land for parking. The City Council adds those blocks to the redevelopment area. City officials estimate the project will take five to seven years to build, putting its completion far beyond Elsey's 1992 estimate. The city already has begun knocking down buildings on parcels of land it owns in the redevelopment area.

August 1988

Bay Plaza discloses it likely will have to offer rent-free space to get the high-end department stores it has promised -- Saks Fifth Avenue, for example. That makes it unlikely Bay Plaza will be able to repay money it owes the city. Consultants hired by the St. Petersburg Times say "there's a good chance that the Bay Plaza plan, as proposed, will not come off," and advise St. Petersburg to acknowledge and prepare for that possibility. The plans are likely to free-fall to "something very much smaller," according to the consultants, something more like Old Hyde Park Village. The team also cautions that Bay Plaza will irretrievably alter the city's "living room" against the will of many residents.

September 1988

Bay Plaza president Neil Elsey and other Bay Plaza executives begin talking about having Burdines and Maas Brothers, established Tampa Bay department store chains, anchor the project instead of Saks and Neiman-Marcus, raising doubts about the supposed regional draw the development might be.

Sept. 20, 1988

A public hearing on Bay Plaza has to be held at the Bayfront Center to accommodate a crowd of some 600 people, many of them opposed to the project's plans to demolish historic buildings.

Sept. 22, 1988

Bay Plaza officials mention they plan to have a private force of armed guards to patrol the finished development, alarming many.

Oct. 6, 1988

The City Council gives a unanimous go-ahead vote to the massive Bay Plaza plan, including demolishing half of Jannus Landing to make room for a parking garage. Bay Plaza now says it will spend $140-million on the project.

Oct. 7, 1988

Times Publishing Company sues Bay Plaza for declining to release a marketing study for the project. The parent company of the St. Petersburg Times contends Bay Plaza is assuming a massive government function, making its records public under state law. Save Our St. Petersburg, despondent over the council vote, talks of disbanding.

Oct. 25, 1988

Bay Plaza submits "final plans" for the project that include several changes, including concentrating the city-funded "Plaza Parkway" improvements within the downtown mall portion of the project, with only token improvements along First Avenue S. Deputy City Manager for Downtown Redevelopment Rick Mussett agrees with Bay Plaza officials that this approach makes the most sense.

Nov. 10, 1988

Another public hearing on the project draws just 80 people. Opponents say they have given up.

November 1988

Handwritten notes and draft agreements reveal that top city officials met to weigh the pros and cons of backing out of a deal with Bay Plaza. City staffers doubt the competency of the company's staff and its financial strength. Mussett writes of "meltdown impacts," listing possible pluses and minuses of canceling contracts with Bay Plaza. Among the pluses:

"Could get more qualified developer(s)."

"Could show city management leadership."

"Direct city control of facilities" now managed by Bay Plaza.

City officials claim they were just running scenarios. Bay Plaza president Neil Elsey says he is "stunned."

December 1988

City officials talk about building all three of the garages for Bay Plaza before Bay Plaza builds anything privately. Bay Plaza asks for $1.36-million from the city to cover huge financial losses during its management of The Pier, despite better than expected attendance. The city has paid Bay Plaza a $155,000 fee to "manage" the parkway, when it hasn't even been built.

Dec. 15, 1988

City Council approves the "final plan" despite all the controversy and concerns after Bay Plaza threatens to leave St. Petersburg for somewhere that the company's project is "wanted." In celebration, Bay Plaza officials order strippers to dance in bikinis for City Manager Robert Obering, who is mortified and asks the women to leave.

January 1989

The City Council gives Bay Plaza its financing package, upping -- but capping -- the city's contribution at $40.5-million. It agrees to build the three garages all at once before any shopping areas are built, running the risk the city will have three empty garages and no development. The Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council declines to approve the project, saying traffic impacts and other matters had not been resolved. Based on that denial and the pending Times public records lawsuit, the parties delay the signing of the final agreement.

Jan. 31, 1989

A judge orders Bay Plaza to turn over the marketing study requested by Times Publishing.

Feb. 8, 1989

The Thomson McKinnon securities firm agrees to find $35-million in preliminary financing for Bay Plaza.

February 1989

With its final agreement with St. Petersburg still unsigned while lawyers quibble over contract details, Bay Plaza Cos. bid to build a similar development south of Baltimore.

Feb. 24, 1989

The city and Bay Plaza sign contracts in a ceremony at The Pier.

March 1989

The low bid on the first parking garage (on the south side of Central Avenue between First and Second streets) comes in more than $3-million over the $13-million the city plans to spend. Deputy City Manager Rick Mussett says the city will scrap all bids, redesign the project to save money and bid it out again, resulting in a delay.

April 1989

John Warren, a St. Petersburg businessman and preservationist, appeals the approval of the redevelopment plan to the governor's cabinet, potentially delaying the project for a year. City officials talk about the need for a local Bay Plaza executive with decision-making authority. Elsey lives in Phoenix, and other executives live in Kansas City.

May 1, 1989

Elsey announces he and senior executives will move their households to St. Petersburg. A prospectus circulating for the project says the existing Maas Brothers will be an anchor store, while Maas says it has not made that commitment.

May 18, 1989

In a compromise to settle Warren's appeal to the cabinet, the city trims the project from six blocks to four, eliminating temporarily all historical buildings from potential demolition.

May 22, 1989

The city accepts a new low bid of $14.1-million for the first parking garage.

June 1989

Bay Plaza announces that it will open a residential real estate office called Bay Plaza Realty. Council members and residents begin to question the company's growing influence over St. Petersburg's affairs.

July 26, 1989

City and Bay Plaza officials hold a groundbreaking ceremony on the garage site. "Unlike what happened in downtown St. Petersburg in the 1950s and '60s and '70s, when retail left because of inadequate parking, it's going to start with adequate parking," Mayor Robert Ulrich tells the city.

September 1989

The Bay Plaza Cos. hires the manager of Tampa's Old Hyde Park Village, Glen D. Harrell, to run its downtown shopping and dining project and to woo tenants.

January 1990

The Kansas City Business Journal reports that J.C. Nichols, the 50-percent partner in Bay Plaza, is going through difficult financial times.

March 1990

Bay Plaza President Neil Elsey says he has met with some Ybor City property owners and Tampa Mayor Sandy Freedman to talk about developing a project in that struggling historic district. After St. Petersburg officials question him, he says he was not trying to work on a competing project.

May 1990

Elsey says a remodeled Maas Brothers store, about 20 retail shops, five restaurants and up to an 18-screen movie theater have committed to be part of the first phase of Bay Plaza's downtown retail district. He declines to name the businesses.

November 1990

The first parking garage building with its two floors of retail space is nearly complete. Elsey said he soon will announce some tenants, including a department store and two restaurants. Despite problems in the lending and retail industries, the $200-million project is on schedule, Elsey says.

December 1990

The garage building opens for parking, but the two floors of retail space remain vacant and unleased.

February 1991

Bay Plaza has not bought two key parcels of land or applied for several city approvals needed to start its "mid-core" project north of First Avenue N between First and Second streets, even though Bay Plaza President Elsey has been saying the project will open by year's end. Elsey says he has an agreement with a tenant for the retail space in the first garage but that he cannot announce it yet. Six mayoral candidates all say they will push for a major investigation of Bay Plaza if elected. Elsey announces that Maas Brothers will renovate its downtown store.

Feb. 22, 1991

Elsey acknowledges that after a year of trying, he has no signed leases with any tenant, that he cannot find financing for the next phase of development, and that he plans to invest no more of his company's money in St. Petersburg until some of that changes. The Persian Gulf War, the recession, reluctant lenders and other market forces are reshaping the original plans of Bay Plaza, he says. Instead of tearing down the Soreno Hotel, Elsey says, he will renovate it into apartments. Even though the second garage cannot be built until leases are signed, about $7.6-million in public money has been spent to buy land and ready the site of the third garage for construction.

March 1991

County records show that Elsey has defaulted on a $325,000 personal loan from an Alaska bank.

April 1991

City Council members learn that Elsey also has defaulted on a $2-million loan in California. "I don't think they knew him at all," City Council member Edward L. Cole Jr. said, recounting how his council predecessors hired Elsey without demanding to see his financial statements. "You think of the Pied Piper sometimes when you think of Neil Elsey. It's hard to determine what's substance."

May 28, 1991

Elsey tells the City Council he has resigned as president of Bay Plaza Cos. Robert L. Jackson Jr., a 48-year-old lawyer who is a vice president with J.C. Nichols Co., replaces him. Nichols, the veteran Kansas City development company that has always been the muscle behind the project, now takes full control of it. Bay Plaza leaders talk of luring JCPenney, Montgomery Ward or Wal-Mart to the still-vacant department store space. They also predict movie theaters could become the project's main draw. "It's got to be something different," agreed Craig Sher, president of the Sembler Co., a St. Petersburg shopping center developer (who would later spearhead the BayWalk development built instead of Bay Plaza). "Nobody is going to drive 25 miles to a Maas Brothers, Sears, Gayfers or Montgomery Ward."

July 9, 1991

Jackson says the Soreno must be demolished.

August 1991

Maas Brothers announces it will close its downtown department store, instead of renovating it as Bay Plaza had said.

September 1991

Bay Plaza says it will think of luring "designer outlet" stores to department store spaces in downtown St. Petersburg.

November 1991

To cut costs, Bay Plaza lays off three executives. Barnett Bank seeks to foreclose on Elsey's Old Northeast home after he fails to make three $4,054 monthly payments.

December 1991

Even though Bay Plaza acknowledges it will be at least two years before it can develop the second garage/retail building, it insists on going ahead with the demolition of the Soreno Hotel.

Jan. 11, 1992

Protesters march around the Soreno with joined hands to protest as workers inside throw pieces of the building out its windows and into trash bins.

Jan. 25, 1992

The superstructure of the Soreno is imploded and recorded on film by a movie crew. The footage is relegated to the closing credits of Lethal Weapon III. Signs that read "Bay Plaza go home" pop up around the city.

March 23, 1993

City voters elect Mayor David Fischer, simultaneously making him a "strong mayor," the city's chief executive instead of just a council member.

May 1993

With still no tenant for the completed garage/retail building, people suggest downsizing the Bay Plaza plans. President Robert Jackson will have none of it, saying he is close to a deal with AMC cinemas.

Sept. 23, 1993

The City Council votes 7-1 to start condemnation proceedings on the seven properties between First and Second streets and First and Third avenues N needed for the theater project, even though Bay Plaza still has no firm lease with AMC.

April 1994

The city allows William Griffith, the manager of The Pier, to start his own company independent of Bay Plaza to manage the attraction. The city already has retaken control of the domed stadium and the Bayfront Center, which Bay Plaza had managed.

May 1994

Still no retail tenant for the bottom floors of the first garage. Still no AMC lease. But Bay Plaza has assembled the land where it says the theater will go -- the northwest corner of Central Avenue and First Street. They envision four other buildings with 250,000 square feet of retail space, a project a quarter of the size of the original Bay Plaza downtown mall.

May 26, 1994

Bay Plaza announces that AMC has signed a lease.

November 1994

Bay Plaza President Robert Jackson stops giving quarterly reports to the City Council because Bay Plaza no longer manages any city facilities, he says.

December 1994

Jackson leaves his employment as president of Bay Plaza. Jack Fox, a vice president at the Kansas City, Mo.-based J.C. Nichols Co., takes over. Nichols officials will not say whether Jackson quit or was fired. A group of Nichols Co. shareholders aligned with Jackson sues Nichols in federal court after the company's board refused a buyout. The company leadership considers the suit part of a hostile takeover bid.

February 1995

It becomes apparent the legal battle embroiling Nichols jeopardizes its ability to see the Bay Plaza project through.

March 8, 1995

St. Petersburg residents learn the city has finally been awarded a Major League Baseball franchise, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, to play at the domed stadium.

June 1, 1995

Nichols cannot find financing for the cinema building and seems ready to miss the June 30 deadline for the beginning of construction. City Council members contemplate parting ways with Bay Plaza. Council member Bob Kersteen compares the process to "a messy divorce." Mayor David Fischer says the city will have the upper hand negotiating with Bay Plaza because with the renovation of the Vinoy hotel and the anticipated arrival of a professional baseball team, downtown is now on the rebound without any help from the company.

June 6, 1995

Bay Plaza's leaders say the project is dead without major changes. They wonder whether they should develop high-rise residential space instead of the low-rise entertainment and retail complex they have been working on for nearly a decade.

June 8, 1995

Fischer pushes for a right of first refusal to purchase Bay Plaza's land if it fails to develop it in a timely way.

June 9, 1995

Fischer says he no longer can support Bay Plaza after the company says it needs 21 months to rework its plans.

June 29, 1995

Despite weeks of grassroots lobbying to end the agreement with Bay Plaza, the City Council votes 5-3 to extend it.

July 24, 1995

Bay Plaza talks about changing its name, which new president Fox says "carries a lot of baggage." A rival movie theater chain to AMC has announced it plans to build a 20-screen theater near the Bayfront Center, threatening Bay Plaza's plans.

August 1995

Bay Plaza plants grass on a vacant half-block it controls along First Avenue N.

Sept. 28, 1995

Saying "It is now clear that the project is not economically feasible for our company," Bay Plaza President Jack Fox announces that J.C. Nichols will abandon its redevelopment plan for downtown. Fischer says the city will pursue several individual developers to do replacement developments instead of trying to find another "master developer" such as Bay Plaza. The city and Bay Plaza have poured about $26-million apiece into the failed project.

October 1995

The city talks about taking some of the vacant land, including the First Avenue site that Bay Plaza owns, in satisfaction of about $3.5-million in debts the company owes the city. Cobb Theatres withdraws its plans for a multiplex near the Bayfront Center.

January 1996

A new development group, the Galbreath Co. and Orix Real Estate Equities Inc., asks the council to let them take over the Bay Plaza project. They want 75-day exclusive negotiating privileges with potential tenants.

Feb. 1, 1996

The City Council approves a contract to unravel its interests from those of Bay Plaza Cos. The city regains control of the half-block at Second Street and First Avenue N in return for forgiving more than $3-million that Bay Plaza owed the city. The now-grassy land reverts to use as a parking lot for Florida International Museum's Splendors of Ancient Egypt exhibit.

February 1996

The city sends 40 developers a request for proposals to develop the former Bay Plaza blocks downtown.

April 1996

Only one group submits a plan, a partnership among Tampa businessman Van McNeel, Devil Rays managing general partner Vince Naimoli and Florida developer and entrepreneur Fred Bullard. It calls for the city to build and then hand over the theater/garage building in exchange for 20 percent of revenues brought in. It also includes a $10-million tram system to connect The Pier, the domed stadium and the city's waterfront park system.

April 26, 1996

Bay Plaza Cos. hold a farewell brunch after shredding 286 boxes of files it compiled during its 10 years in St. Petersburg.

May 4, 1996

The Naimoli-Bullard-McNeel group pitches its plan to the City Council. Attorneys Roy Harrell Jr. and Joel Giles of the Carlton Fields law firm said they suggested to the partners that they partner to develop the downtown land as a civic project, not a money-maker. "It's a skinny deal," Harrell said. He had been an attorney for the Bay Plaza Cos., which he says taught him that too large a plan will not work downtown. Mayor David Fischer opposes the plan.

May 1996

In another sign of Bay Plaza Cos.' eagerness to cut its losses downtown, the company stops making mortgage payments and faces foreclosure on the old Colonial Hotel property at First Street and Second Avenue N and the Ponce de Leon Hotel at First Street and Central Avenue.

May 31, 1996

Naimoli, McNeel and Bullard pull The Sembler Co. into their development team, strengthening the proposal in city officials' eyes and gaining Fischer's support.

September 1996

Bay Plaza Cos. lets its 110-year-lease on the waterfront Soreno Hotel site lapse, a surprising move, since the property was considered the most valuable piece in its portfolio.

Sept. 5, 1996

City Council approves a modified Sembler-Naimoli-Bullard-McNeel plan. The group of entrepreneurs, called Redevelopment Partners Inc., gains authority to negotiate for potential tenants for the former downtown Bay Plaza property. The whole project is envisioned in a high-rise building on the half-block on First Avenue N that wound up holding just the parking garage.

August 1997

JMC Communities proposes a 50-condominium tower for the former site of the Soreno Hotel on Beach Drive.

March 1998

Sembler Co. President Craig Sher announces that the Redevelopment Partners group plans to anchor its downtown "BayWalk" project with a 20- to 24-screen Muvico cinema. The project will use both the First Avenue N half-block and the old Bay Plaza block north of Second Avenue N. There will be an assortment of shops and restaurants in a Mediterranean-style plaza, Mel Sembler says. The First Avenue half-block will contain a city parking garage with retail on the bottom floor. Sher expects to open the project by the end of 1999.

May 28, 1998

City Council approves BayWalk. The city budgets $10.5-million for a new parking garage and landscaping. The whole project is projected to run $40-million, mostly borne by the private developers. The developers will buy the northern block for $3.2-million.

June 1998

Florida Power begins moving its employees into the long-vacant lower floors of the Central Avenue garage building built for Bay Plaza. The space has been vacant for the nearly eight years it has existed.

July 1998

The Sembler Co. releases BayWalk architectural drawings and moves the opening date back to "early 2000."

August 1998

JMC Communities breaks ground on the Florencia, a 21-story condominium building, on the former Soreno Hotel site.

April 1999

Sembler spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on construction drawings, offering additional assurance that BayWalk will be built.

June 1999

A partial tenant list announced for BayWalk shows Gap and Gap kids as the anchor tenants, along with a daiquiri bar and several restaurants.

Aug. 30, 1999

Mayor David Fischer deeds 11/2 blocks of former Bay Plaza land to the BayWalk developers for a $1.75-million payment and a promissory note for $1.45-million.

February 2000

Bulldozers roll and then structural steel starts going up on the northern block of the BayWalk project. Meanwhile, the pre-cast concrete beams of the garage rise a block to the south.

May 18, 2000

The Sembler Co. releases a revised tenant list for BayWalk, and discloses that the Gap has pulled out of the project. However, a few more restaurants are in, including Adobo Grill and Dan Marino's Town Tavern.

May 26, 2000

There is a construction accident at the BayWalk garage -- a massive concrete beam falls from its perch after a worker mistakenly unwelds it. The crash damages three floors of the garage.

August 2000

The Sembler Co. announces that Ann Taylor, the upscale women's clothing retailer, will anchor BayWalk in place of the Gap. As the nearly-completed Muvico building is being painted, people complain that its lemon-yellow skin and brown trim are ugly.

October 2000

The latest tenant list adds several women's clothing retailers to BayWalk. Just two storefronts in the project remain unleased. The opening date of Nov. 17 is announced.

Nov. 11, 2000

An invitation-only charity benefit is held at the Muvico BayWalk 20 Theaters to celebrate its opening.

This week

Tuesday

An invitation-only VIP party will celebrate the opening of BayWalk.

Friday

As Christmas movies are released, the BayWalk project will open to the public.

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