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Coffee Talk (Sara/Mana edition)
Downtown guru: Install parking meters
Glib Gibbs. You can say that about Robert Gibbs, one of the nationis leading urban planning and retail experts and the keynote speaker at the Downtown Partnershipis Annual Dinner & Retail Forum.
Brought in by Michael Saunders & Co. for an encore performance to his visit last fall, Gibbs captivated his audience of 250 at the dinner Jan. 18 and the 150 attendees at the forum Jan. 19 with his remarkable expertise and blunt remarks. A sampling:
After Sarasota Commissioner Lou Ann Palmer rattled on about trolleys in a panel discussion about downtown, Gibbs, in his customary unemotional monotone, responded: iTrolleys donit work. Thereis not a city in America that can afford an advertising campaign to change human behavior.i
On Sarasotais future: iStarting in 2007, your growth rate will take off like a rocket,i Gibbs said. iBetween now and 2027, you will have a boom to end all booms.i Over the next 25 years, he says, because of the retiring boomers, i50 million Americans will move to the Sun Belt.i
Gibbis leading recommendation to help downtown: Install parking meters on Main Street. iThere will be a huge backlash against it,i he said. iSome council members will be recalled.i But it must be done. Gibbs said it makes no sense for Sarasota to make the most valuable parking spots on Main Street free and charge people to park in the Whole Foods parking lot.
It should be reversed, he said. If the city had short-term parking meters on Main Street, that would increase retailersi sales 15% immediately o because of the turnover in shoppers.
Githler pulls the plug
Sarasota hotelier-developer-entrepreneur Charles Githler told Coffee Talk early in the week he and his partners are withdrawing their application to develop condominiums at their Whitaker Bayou site on North Tamiami Trail.
Reason: Cost.
iOur analysis showed that from the time we submitted the first plan and now, the cost had risen $10 million,i Githler said. That $10 million increase came even after Githleris group planned to cut the height of two buildings in half o from 120 feet to 65 feet.
In April 2004, the Sarasota City Commission rejected Yacht Center Land Co.is application for a $96 million project that would have included 40 idockominiumsi and 114 condominium units.
Githler said he and his partners would have been happy with the 65-foot buildings and could have made their project work economically. But when construction and material costs jumped $10 million, that killed the project.
Githler said his group now plans to upgrade the property to an upscale marina and dockominiums o essentially a dry dock with club amenities.
Knowing when to hold, fold and sell
Chatting at the Concession gala cocktail party last week in the courtyard of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art & Design, Manatee developer Frank Buskirk said he has had a few pains in his stomach lately, thanks to the Jack Nicklaus-Tony Jacklin-Kevin Daves Concession development project in East Manatee County.
Not that heis upset with whatis happening at the site of the new golf course and residential development. He cringes, however, when he hears how much money home sites are commanding at the Concession.
Buskirk and his partners sold the 1,250 acres for the Concession in August 2003 for $14.5 million. At the time, Buskirk was completing his Panther Ridge residential development project adjacent to the Concession site. Back then, Buskirk says, he was selling home sites for $125,000 to $150,000. iWhen I hear theyire getting $600,000,i O Well, you can imagine how he feels.
Then again, Buskirk noted, iWe got our money out and donit have the risk anymore.i
Footnotes on the Concession gala: The Jack Nicklaus family and his Golden Bear company have purchased 33 lots at the Concession. Nicklaus and his family have teamed up with famed designer Adrienne Vitadini to create the prototypes of what will become the Nicklaus Manor Homes.
Talk about a family affair: Nicklaus designs golf courses; his wife Barbara and daughter Nan are interior designers; son-in-law Bill is the golf course and development landscape designer; and sons Jack Jr., Gary and Steve are all involved in other design and operational aspects of the family business.
Conference center on the agenda
You may want to be a listener at the joint session of the Sarasota County and Sarasota city commissioners at 3 p.m. Jan. 31 in the ithink tanki room on the third floor of the county administration building, 1660 Ringling Blvd. Tim Clarke, chairman of the Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerceis conference center task force, says his group is hoping to make definitive recommendations to the two groups on a site, how to finance the center and how to manage it.
Likely recommended site: the existing tourist information center, Sarasota Garden Club and Sarasota Art Center on Tamiami Trail.
Sarasota County Commissioner Paul Mercier told Coffee Talk heis non-committal at this point on raising the bed tax, largely because constituents in Venice, North Port and Englewood arenit too keen about their bed-tax revenues financing a facility that primarily benefits downtown Sarasota.
Grrrrr
Trust us folks; we couldnit make up something like this. On Jan. 19, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals held a one-hour isnarl-ini in front of the PETsMART store, 4942 S. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota, to protest the Iams Co., a division of Procter & Gamble Co.
PETA is upset that Iams, which produces pet food and care products, conducts what the organization calls cruel and unnecessary animal testing.
A press release quotes PETA senior vice president Mary Beth Sweetland as saying, iWeire howling mad that Iams is causing misery and death for dogs and cats while feeding its customers a line of fiction.i
Correction
A story on Anand Pallegar, (GCBR, June 14-20), contained inaccurate information. Startup Sarasota is a for-profit entity designed to benefit economic development efforts in the region and the interaction and communication between businesspeople and the creative class. Its daily e-mail newsletter, S2, contains business news covering the two counties.
EtcO
i Bob Kirscher, owner of the Broken Egg Restaurant on Siesta Key, has been installed as president of the Sarasota Chapter of the Florida National Restaurant Association. Kirscher has also been appointed to the board of the FNRA.
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