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Coffee Talk
+ The ever growing
Price Guarantee Club
Sarasota-based developer Rob Morris is balancing an odd mix of anxiety and confidence as he seeks buyers for the remaining 15% of inventory in his current project. He's anxious to get the sales done so he can move on to the next construction phase, yet he's just as confident in the project, Philippi Landings, as he's ever been.
Morris, executive vice president of the Ramar Group, is using that confidence as his membership card to a small, albeit growing club of Gulf Coast developers and builders: Call it the Price Guarantee Club.
Morris has instituted a three-year price guarantee commitment to new units sold at Philippi Landings, a luxury condo project a few miles south of downtown Sarasota with units ranging in size from 1,700 square feet to 3,700 square feet.
The move follows other guarantee programs made by a diverse lot, including some homebuilders in the Tampa area, a real estate brokerage in Bradenton and a few other developers in Sarasota and Naples.
"This is a tangible way for us to express our confidence in the market," says Morris. The guarantee's specifics are simple: A buyer of a new property can have an appraisal of the property three years from the closing date. If the condo is worth less than what the buyer initially paid for it, the Ramar Group will either buy it back or refund the difference.
Morris says he came up with the price guarantee plan over the past few months, as he watched the pool of interested, thinking-about-it buyers grow, just as the amount of actually buyers shrunk. The developer did sell a top-floor penthouse recently, but most of the possible buyers have stopped short of a full commitment.
Morris says the price guarantee is being marketed in Europe and other international markets. And he adds that some of the new units come with upgraded flooring and trims, another point he hopes to use to entice buyers.
+ Lee County's
first signs of hope
It's hard to find much good news about Lee County's housing market.
But here's the first sign that things are improving, courtesy of Brad Hunter, South Florida director for housing consulting firm Metrostudy: In some of the top-selling residential communities in Lee County, more people are moving in than there are builders starting to construct new homes.
That's important because it's an indication the huge inventory of new but vacant homes is finally starting to be whittled down to more reasonable levels. Metrostudy gathers its data by driving around every street of every major residential community to count the number of vacant homes.
Still, Hunter acknowledges that his firm doesn't count vacant homes on scattered lots. Those have been hit particularly hard by foreclosures in such areas as Cape Coral and Lehigh Acres. Problems in those areas may be masking good news in planned communities.
+ Weight loss chain
comes to Florida
Physician-directed Hy-Tech Weight Loss, a chain of weight loss centers based in Omaha, Neb., has opened a St. Petersburg location at 17 Dr. Martin Luther King St. S. and is scouting around for up to nine more sites in Florida.
Hy-Tech Weight Loss was founded in 2002. The program, designed by doctors, dietitians, nutritionists and herbalists, uses technology to test and measure each persons' weight-loss needs. The centers design a custom meal plan for each person based on their metabolism.
The program teaches clients how to make correct choices at supermarkets and restaurants. Hy-Tech also provides nutritional and fitness coaching.
+ Safest place for housing
in Lee County: Matlacha
If the Lee County area has the worst rate of foreclosure in the country, then is any place in the county safe?
Our friends at the Southwest Florida Real Estate Investor's Association recently broke down March's 1,784 properties in some stage of foreclosure by geographical area. And yes, some places aren't hit as hard as others.
The safest place to be from foreclosures: Matlacha (pronounced matt-lash-ay), a tiny fishing and arts community straddling the narrow road between Cape Coral and Pine Island. It had one foreclosure in March. Fort Myers Beach came in second place with two foreclosures, St. James City on Pine Island (four foreclosures), Sanibel (five) and Bookelia on Pine Island (seven) rounded out the top five.
It's no surprise that all these communities either are on or near an island. Pine Island, Fort Myers Beach and Sanibel appear to be faring better than most areas in Lee County.
+ Tampa gets
two new conventions
Siting good prices, available hotels, the convention center and the weather, two Washington-based associations have picked Tampa as the site of their 2010 and 2011 conventions, bringing more than 6,500 delegates.
The International Foodservice Distributors Association has selected Tampa for its October 2010 Distribution Conference & Exposition. The conference will produce more than 3,100 hotel room nights and estimated delegate spending of more than $1.1 million.
The National Association of Elementary School Principals will bring its annual convention to Tampa in April 2011. More than 5,000 delegates will produce about 10,600 hotel room nights and create more than $4.6 million in delegate spending.
+ Beall's finally gets
new president
Bradenton-based retailer Beall's has hired Lana Cain Krauter, a one-time executive with Sears and JCPenney's, as the company's next president. Krauter replaces Conrad Szymanski, who left the president's post in July to take over the company's outlet store division.
Krauter, 56, will run the company's 70-plus department stores, where she will be responsible for all merchandising, marketing, e-commerce, store operations and real estate functions, according to a company statement. She will report to Beall's chief executive Steve Knopik.
Krauter's 30-year plus career in retail includes one stop with Specialty Retailers, the parent company of Beall's Texas. But her most prominent positions were with Sears and JCPenney's - the latter of which is often compared to Beall's and one of the chain's top competitors, along with Kohl's.
At Sears, Krauter, 56, ran the women's intimate apparel and accessories departments and was part of the executive team that created the popular "Softer Side of Sears" marketing and branding campaign. Her most recent job prior to Beall's was at JCPenney's, where she was named an executive vice president in charge of the $5.3 million men's and children's clothing departments.
Krauter, who has been recognized by retail industry magazine DNR News as a member of the Power 100, will start her position at Beall's later this month. The privately held company had 2007 revenues of $1.19 billion, up 4.1% from 2006, when it had $1.15 billion.
"Lana's impressive background and familiarity with the customer segment that Beall's targets make her an ideal match for our needs," Knopik says in the statement. "However, it is her character, her values and her personality that made her the clear choice. I know that she will add a very positive dimension to the culture of our company."
Bradenton land firm
clear out of options
The real estate market slump has snared its latest victim: Bradenton-based Earthworks Land Development.
The company, which did business in Charlotte, Hillsborough, Manatee and Sarasota counties, had 75 employees and a little more than $15 million in annual revenues as recently as halfway through 2007. It even had a backlog of $16 million worth of potential jobs as recently as June.
Problem was, those revenues and future jobs were completely tied to clearing land and moving dirt for residential housing projects. So when those projects were delayed or altogether cancelled, most of the potential jobs for Earthworks evaporated, company President John Jackson says.
After researching and contemplating his options through most of February and March, Jackson went ahead April 9 with what he called an easy business decision but a difficult one personally: He officially suspended all operations at Earthworks. The company didn't file for bankruptcy and Jackson says he has no plans to, as the company remains solvent. Jackson does plan on selling the businesses equipment after the remaining employees complete the firm's current jobs.
The alternative to going out of business, Jackson tells Coffee Talk, would have been to continue operating with lower margins on shrinking revenues.
"As the management team analyzed the economic data made available to us during our early 2008 business planning process," Jackson wrote in a letter to vendors and clients, "we came to the conclusion that a turnaround substantial enough to provide, at a minimum, breakeven revenue opportunities would not occur for at least another 18 to 24 months."
Hence the easy business decision to shut things down. "When you own your business," Jackson says, "the cold hard truth is that you have to be objective."
Jackson, a U.S. Army Veteran who served one tour in Desert Storm during the first Gulf War, had been through adverse times with the company once before: In 2003, the company nearly filed for bankruptcy, only to avoid that fate after Jackson implemented several management policies and techniques he learned mostly from the military. At that time, Jackson had just taken over the company from his uncle, who left the business after being diagnosed with emphysema.
Jackson then led the company's turnaround, which included growing its revenues, employee base and profits every year since 2004. And Jackson says his proudest accomplishment with Earthworks, besides providing the opportunity for 75 people to work and obtain health and other benefits, was the amount of community work the company did, including donating free parking lots and roadwork to several Gulf Coast nonprofits.
Jackson, who counts reading management and military leadership books as a hobby, says he kept a journal of the past three months, so he can lean on this experience later in his business life. And Jackson promises the Gulf Coast business community will hear from him again, either as an employee of another company - he's already had several offers, he says - or as an employer in another business.
Gulf Coast Airport Traffic for february
February February YTD YTD
Total Passengers 2007 2008 change 2007 2008 change
Tampa International 1,535,825 1,575,347 2.57% 3,073,964 3,104,092 0.98%
Southwest Florida Int. 841,727 845,741 0.48% 1,624,934 1,608,057 -1.04%
Sarasota Bradenton Int. 148,462 166,624 12.23% 284,710 312,518 9.77%
St. Pete-Clearwater Int. 59,024 84,343 42.90% 113,218 161,729 42.85%
TOTAL 2,585,038 2,672,055 3.37% 5,096,826 5,186,396 1.76%
February February YTD YTD
Cargo/Freight 2007 2008 change 2007 2008 change
Tampa International 17,166,338 17,029,024 -0.80% 35,202,148 34,433,759 -2.18%
Southwest Florida Int. 3,438,761 3,130,410 -8.97% 6,925,686 6,271,963 -9.44%
Sarasota Bradenton Int. 44,746 47,006 5.05% 94,410 90,437 -4.21%
St. Pete-Clearwater Int. 4,688,570 3,346,070 -28.63% 9,707,230 7,063,340 -27.24%
TOTAL 25,338,415 23,552,510 -7.05% 51,929,474 47,859,499 -7.84%
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