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Coffee Talk (Sara/Mana)
New beginnings
After five years, Phil Wolff has split from Sarasota's Levin Tannenbaum Wolff Band Gates & Pugh PL. The real estate lawyer has joined a partnership with Jim Gibson and Lauren Kohl-Helbig to form Gibson Kohl-Helbig & Wolff PL.
Those involved describe the parting as amicable, with former law partner Alan Tannenbaum even mentioning that his firm and Wolff still maintain a working relationship. Wolff's former partners have reorganized as Levin Tannenbaum Band Gates & Pugh PL.
"It's all amicable," says Wolff, who has practiced real estate law in the Sarasota market for more than 30 years. "I just thought for the future development of my practice this was a better fit."
The move combines Wolff's land development practice with Kohl-Helbig's real estate closing work. If client matters ever go south, they'll turn to Gibson, a Florida Bar certified trial lawyer.
St. Patrick's Day in May
Is Sarasota the new center of green?
The Florida Green Building Coalition Inc. sure thinks so. The type of 'green' the organization is interested in refers to environmentally friendly and energy efficient building construction, and according to Roy O. Bonnell, Jr., the coalition's executive director, Sarasota County is a hotbed for it.
"Sarasota has one of the highest concentration of green buildings taking place in the state," Bonnell says. "The developers of Lakewood Ranch (Schroeder-Manatee Ranch Inc.) and WCI both have certified green developments. There are also a lot of L.E.E.D.s (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified projects."
In addition, Sarasota County has an economic incentive program for developers/contractors to build green-certified buildings and has committed to requiring green construction in all new facilities.
As a reward, the Florida Green Building Conference and Trade Show will be held in Sarasota May 25-27 at the Chelsea Center. The conference is also timed to coincide with Sarasota's Efest, which runs from May 27-28.
The conference was unable to stay at the Hyatt Sarasota, which is one of the first hotels going through the process of green certification, because of space requirements. The Green Building Conference is expected to bring 250 visitors to Sarasota.
Happy hammers
The Associated General Contractors of America, the largest and oldest national construction trade association in the United States, has reason to be jubilant. The Census Bureau reported that the value of construction put in place nationwide in the past year was $1.047 trillion, a 13th consecutive record event at a seasonally adjusted annual rate. In March alone, according to the AGC, the industry generated 7.15 million payroll jobs.
All five of the main subcategories of construction employment shared in the gains since March 2003: residential building was up 7.1 %, nonresidential building increased by 3.7%, heavy and civil engineering by 0.8%, residential specialty trades by 3.4%, and nonresidential specialty trades up 3.6%.
At the same time, the Census Bureau reported that new orders for construction machinery increased 14% in the first two months of 2005 compared to the same period a year earlier, and orders for construction materials and supplies rose 10%.
The only dark cloud on the horizon for the construction industry, according to the AGC, are price increases and tight supplies for construction products, particularly aluminum, copper, diesel, freight charges, petroleum-based products and wood.
The AGC represents more than 33,000 firms.
Waiting to learn
Get ready to add another three months to the wait for a consultant to design a University District on North Tamiami Trail. According to David Voss, director of University Relations for USF Sarasota-Manatee, the eight-party government and school group that issued a Request for Qualifications for a consultant to provide the planning and design services necessary to create a University District, has decided to reissue the request as an Invitation to Negotiate.
Voss says the community group, which includes the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee, Ringling School of Art and Design, New College of Florida, Florida State University Ringling Center for Cultural Arts and Ringling Museum of Art, city of Sarasota, and Manatee and Sarasota counties, thought it could operate under the Ringling School of Art's rules of financial decision-making. After a little bit of additional thought - and four RFQ respondents later - the group decided to go with a more strict approval method and start the process over again.
Unfortunately, the Invitation to Negotiate tosses out the RFQs scheduled for completion.
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