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Coffee Talk (Sara/Mana edition)
Carrot or stick?
Businessman Harvey Vengroff had a not so subtle ace up his sleeve in negotiations with the City of Sarasota over The Backlot project. After announcing that the project, a development on a former Stottlemeyer Shoemaker lumberyard at Fruitville Road and Old Bradenton Road, was dead in mid-February, Vengroff started making moves to relocate his multibillion dollar credit and collections company, Vengroff, Williams & Associates, to Manatee County.
"I had begun negotiations outside the city," Vengroff says.
That caught the attention of Kathy Baylis, president of Sarasota's new Economic Development Corp. She arranged a meeting with Vengroff and City Manager Michael McNees.
That meeting proved fruitful. The project was resuscitated with minor changes, and Vengroff committed to keeping VWA in Sarasota.
The main outcome of the latest negotiation is that Vengroff will have to revise the development to include space for the Sarasota Boxing Club, whose current facility fueled most of the original controversy. City officials agreed to help Vengroff obtain the same density as condominiums, which is 200 units per acre, so that he can develop 1,600 apartment units and to help in the approval of 31 single-family homes, designed to sell for $125,000 to $150,000.
VWA plans to add 77 new jobs in the local market within 60 days.
Toward year's end, Vengroff plans to start The Backlot with a black box theater building followed shortly by an adjacent multiuse building with office space, a new home for the Sarasota Boxing Club and possibly a restaurant or coffee house.
Colorful choice
Sarasota's newest hotel is on the way. This past week, developers held a formal groundbreaking for the 95-unit Indigo Hotel, bordered by the Renaissance condominium on one side and Boulevard of the Arts on the other. However, the site almost wound up as a much more commonplace hotel.
"It was already approved as a Holiday Inn Express under the former ownership," says Doug Tibbetts, managing partner of Paradise Hotels of Florida LLC, the property owner. "(But when we bought) we knew we didn't want a typical roadside hotel at that location. We were looking for something more unique."
So Tibbetts and fellow investors: Mike Wright, Tom Testwuide, Paul Klick and Tim Holt initially turned their attention to the Hampton Inn hotel concept. It was around that time that InterContinental Hotels Group, which owns the Holiday Inn brands, debuted the Indigo brand.
The Indigo brand is designed to appeal to business travelers who want more luxury than the typical budget chain. The brand follows a retail-service model, which emphasizes hardwood floors, an unusual main desk and furniture design and regular changes to the look of the hotel and guest room through the use of different art and furniture slipcovers.
"We have budgeted about 2% of room revenues for these (regular) changes," says Tom Woodward, director of Brand Development for InterContinental Hotels. "It sounds expensive, but we found that it reduces the impact of the higher priced major rehab every five or seven years. The price is actually pretty comparable. It's the same with the wood floors. Initially it's a little bit more expensive, but these floors have a 10-year warranty. There is no carpet you can get that will last for 10 years."
The hotel will also feature a bistro-style restaurant and bar called The Golden Bean.
The Sarasota location will be the third Indigo in the brand and the first that is completely new construction. Atlanta-based Wesley Hospitality, which has part ownership of the hotel, will manage the new facility.
Site work is slated to begin in the next few weeks.
Last straw
Don't ask a banker about his CAMELS. The two of you could end up in the pokey.
Just a reminder from your friendly banking regulators.
Four government agencies are warning insurers to stop making liability coverage for bank directors and officers dependent on disclosure of a secret rating of an institution's financial condition.
On a scale of one to five, the composite score issued by bank examiners is known as a CAMELS rating. CAMELS is an acronym for the six factors that examiners attempt to measure: capital adequacy, asset quality, management, earnings, liquidity and sensitivity to market risk.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the Office of Thrift Supervision are enlisting the help of state insurance officials to force bank insurers to do underwriting without the CAMELS rating.
Federal law prohibits disclosure of CAMELS ratings to anybody without explicit regulatory approval. Criminal penalties may be imposed.
The feds justify the big hush-hush by pointing out that a "composite 5" on the CAMELS scale is usually the straw that breaks the bank's back. The next step for regulators is typically closing down such a low-rated institution for reckless lending.
Study: Florida small business friendly
Florida's business climate is supportive of small business, according to the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB)/Florida's small-business conditions report.
Thirty-two percent of respondents to a recent survey indicated Florida is supportive of small business. Comparatively, Florida's Central region registered a supportive rating of 39% and Tampa/West Coast recorded 37%. The North Florida and Gold Coast regions trailed with supportive ratings of 29% and 26%, respectively.
About 61% of Florida small employers called business conditions good in their market area. However, the Gold Coast, at 51%, and North Florida, at 56%, trailed Tampa/West Coast, at 70%, and Central, at 69%.
Etc..
• The Sarasota Associations of Realtors Inc. and its 2004 board of directors filed a response to Lois Hekker's antitrust suit disputing Hekker's charges, and in a separate filing the defendants filed a motion to dismiss the complaint.
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