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Coffee Talk (Tampa)
'Shark Tank' goes after feds
Fishermen, from the Panhandle to Naples, are rallying against a rule that reduces the daily red grouper bag limit from two to one and calls for a complete ban of recreational fishing of all grouper in the Gulf of Mexico in November and December.
Two Gulf Coast recreational fishing groups, represented by volunteer lawyers, are suing the federal government over its interim ban on grouper fishing.
"The federal government is acting to protect commercial fishermen at the expense of the recreational fishermen," says Pinellas County lawyer Craig Berman of the Fishing Rights Alliance. A group of lawyers for the alliance, who've been dubbed the "Shark Tank," filed a federal lawsuit last month in Tampa to overturn the ban.
"To me, it's a national disgrace this could happen to protect the precious long-liner (commercial fishermen) who's killing whatever they catch, whether it's legal or not," Berman adds.
In Fort Myers, the Coastal Conservation Association filed a similar federal lawsuit against U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Marine Fisheries Service.
The groups plan to overturn the rule that went into effect over the summer, Berman says, adding: "We think the Florida judges will see the agency has acted in a capricious and arbitrary manner."
The groups contend the government relied on faulty data in determining the grouper fishery, including 17 sub-species, is over-fished. And if it is over-fished, Berman says, why not place limits on the long-liners who bring in 81% of all grouper caught in the Gulf?
Florida officials don't support the ban because recreational fishing contributes greatly to Florida's tourism industry, Berman says. And by the way, the federal rule applies only to fishing outside of the state's nine-mile boundary.
Berman, a solo practitioner, and E. Colin Thompson and Lewis J. Conwell, both of DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary US LLP, represent the Fishing Rights Alliance, while J. Matthew Belcastro and John A. Noland, both of Henderson, Franklin, Starnes & Holt PA, Fort Myers, represent Coastal Conservation Association.
Condoflip.com coming
It's no secret that "flippers" are driving much of the boom in condominium development. Flippers are investors who buy condos at a discount during the preconstruction phase and then sell when the building is near completion.
But until now, condo resales have taken place in a haphazard way, with no central marketplace where buyers and sellers can meet. Enter Condoflip.com, a Web site launched by Mark Zilbert, president of Zilbert Realty Group in Miami Beach. Condoflip.com will list preconstruction sales and resales of condos throughout the state starting Oct. 1.
Zilbert says he's currently building the number of listings in Condoflip.com's database. So far, he has about 1,000 listings, including 200 in condo towers stretching from Naples to Tampa. He estimates 60% to 70% of the new condos in West Florida will be resold. In South Florida, flippers account for 80% of the new units sold, Zilbert says.
Are we still cheap?
Housing costs, including condos, have gone up along the Gulf Coast. But we're still comparatively cheap, up against the swells down in South Florida.
A family of four in the Tampa, Sarasota, Punta Gorda and Fort Myers metropolitan areas needed less to live on than an identical household in Fort Lauderdale, according to a new study by the Economic Policy Institute.
Two parents with two children in the Tampa Bay area had to have an annual budget of $40,925 to get by in 2004. The foursome needed $40,121 in Sarasota or Manatee counties. The household budgets in the Fort Myers-Cape Coral area and Charlotte County could have been even smaller at $38,280 and $38,054, respectively.
In Fort Lauderdale, with the highest cost of living in Florida, the family of four needed $44,821 last year to live on. Naples was the fourth highest in the state for cost of living at $41,819. Taxes, along with housing costs, were the determining factors in how a metropolitan area stacked up in the Florida ranking.
Investment opportunity
Condo investors might want to call Jeff Keierleber, a real estate developer in Waukesha, Wis. His Decade Properties Inc. has quietly begun renovations at the Holiday Inn Harbourside Resort, 401 Second St., in Indian Rocks Beach, with plans to convert the hotel's 164 units into condos. The company has owned the resort property since the early 1990s.
If you've got some extra bucks, Keierleber has another opportunity, too. He's selling an adjoining 1.7 acres. The asking price: a cool $28 million. That's about $16.5 million an acre. But there are some built-in incentives.
The 1.7-acre site already is approved for 100 two-bedroom and two-bath condos designed with about 1,200 square feet each. So a developer who prices units at just an average of $500,000 each could be looking at a total project payout of about $50 million.
By the way, the purchase price doesn't include the adjoining 50-slip marina or two restaurants on the hotel property. Those are just facilities that Keierleber describes as additional amenities in a sale prospectus.
RBC Centura moving
RBC Centura Banks Inc. is moving its North Carolina headquarters from suburban Raleigh to the state capital, another sign the Royal Bank of Canada's American banking subsidiary probably isn't for sale. In Rocky Mount, N.C., the bank has more than 1,000 employees, most of whom will follow senior management to downtown Raleigh by 2008, when the new headquarters is set to open.
RBC Centura operates in five Southeast states, including Florida, but executives at the holding company in Toronto has been disappointed by the U.S. banking unit's results.
Royal Bank of Canada President and CEO Gordon M. Nixon did express some pleasure last month with fiscal third-quarter results.
"We are encouraged by the U.S. and international personal and business segment's 27% growth in earnings," says Nixon. The results excluded a tax provision related to the jettisoning of a troubled American mortgage operation.
RBC Centura is the nation's 42nd biggest bank, according to SNL Financial. But RBC Centura's Florida presence is growing, although it had less than 1% of bank deposits in the state, as of the most recent federal regulatory survey.
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