Sarasota Florida Blog

Snaith’s forecast was strikingly similar to one he gave a year ago, when he predicted the local economic recovery would start to “take off” in 2011 and would be flying in 2012 and 2013.

Snaith made light of his previous forecast, striking a line through 2011 and replacing the take-off date for the local recovery with 2012.

“Two-thousand twelve is our new runway,” he said at the Economic Development Corp. of Sarasota County’s 2012 Economic Outlook luncheon.

While last year’s projection was off, which he blamed on the debt fight in Washington and Europe’s troubles, Snaith is confident that recovery in coastal Florida communities like Sarasota is inevitable.

“The baby boomers aren’t getting any younger and it’s still cold up north,” he said.

While local wages and unemployment will improve at the same tepid pace as the rest of the state, Snaith sees Sarasota County with a couple of edges over the rest of the state.

Pointing to the surprise finding by the U.S. Census last month that Florida had a surge of population growth last year, ranking only behind Texas and California, Snaith projects that population growth in Sarasota County will heat up.

Sarasota will add about 4,000 in population in the coming year, putting it among the faster-growing metro areas, led by Orlando, which is headed for a projected 1.9 percent growth rate. Of the 12 areas he tracks, the slowest growth will be seen in the Deltona-Daytona area at a 0.6 percent clip.

Article source: http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20120126/article/120129603

john.hielscher@heraldtribune.com

SARASOTA — City officials are expected to soon render a decision on plans for a mixed-use hotel two developers hope to build on city-owned land next to the new Palm Avenue parking garage.

Backers say the proposals, which would add up to 200 hotel rooms, could also encourage other development in downtown Sarasota.

The two plans vary widely in scope and cost, how they would be financed, and in how much city participation would be sought to develop the nearly one-acre site at Palm and Cocoanut avenues.

Floridays Development Co. wants to build 150 to 200 hotel rooms and include meeting space and a ballroom, spa, a restaurant and lounges.

That proposal also calls for the top two floors to be reserved for owner-occupied or rental units, an option to manage the Palm Avenue garage, and possible development of city-owned beach property on Lido Key for a hotel amenity.

Floridays, a Sarasota firm headed by Angus Rogers, estimates the cost at $41.6 million to $51.9 million, depending on the number of hotel rooms. The company wants the city to partially finance the project through a credit-tenant lease, though it would acquire the land from the city for $3.8 million.

The other proposal, from Jebco Ventures and McKibbon Hotel Group, calls for 175 suites, a restaurant, meeting rooms and nearly 16,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space.

Jebco, with offices in Sarasota and Atlanta, did not include plans for the garage or beach property.

President Jim Bridges said the estimated the $25 million cost would be financed by Jebco and McKibbon. The developer would lease the land from the city.

The city’s evaluation committee has met twice with each developer and will convene Friday to further review the proposals, said purchasing manager Mary Tucker.

No date has been set to bring a recommendation to the City Commission, Tucker said.

The six-story, 750-space parking garage opened on New Year’s Eve 2010. Early last year, three developers submitted unsolicited proposals to build a hotel on the adjacent site, but city commissioners opted to go through a formal invitation process.

Floridays said it would like to open the hotel by summer 2014. Jebco said it would open in winter 2014.

“The demand for a hotel is certainly here now,” Bridges said.

The Hilton-owned Embassy Suites Hotel chain is “very bullish” on attaching its flag to the Jebco hotel, he said.

Floridays wants its “boutique” hotel to be independent, avoiding the expense of maintaining a franchise. A rendering filed with its plans refers to “HotelPalm.”

The Floridays proposal also incorporates a privately owned parcel at 1255 N. Palm Ave. that it said it has an option to purchase. Without that parcel, the developer said it would be cost-restricted to just 120 hotel rooms.

“The development of these two parcels will transform the corner of Palm Avenue and Cocoanut Avenue into a vibrant activity center anchored by a destination hotel that will attract local residents and out of town visitors,” the company stated in its plans.

Both companies are experienced developers.

Floridays said its signature projects include Grand Riviera, a 13-unit luxury residence on Golden Gate Point; Florida’s Resort Orlando, a 430-unit hotel near Sea World; and 5300 Lofts in Atlanta, a mixed condo sales and rental project.

Jebco’s projects include Vista Bay Point, a two-tower, 16-unit condo on Golden Gate Point; The Phoenix on Peachtree, a 27-story condo in Atlanta; and The Marietta Trade Center, a 270,000-square-foot shopping center in Marietta, Ga.

Article source: http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20120125/article/120129652

LEHIGH ACRES

Florida’s housing collapse is providing plenty of background scenery and talking points in Mitt Romney’s campaign here so far, with the candidate staging rallies at foreclosure hotspots and struggling construction companies, blaming President Barack Obama and Newt Gingrich for the state’s struggles and asserting he can solve the problems.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney campaigns in front of a foreclosed home in Lehigh Acres, Fla., Tuesday. (AP photo)

But while the issue is of central importance to many Floridians — nearly a million mortgages are in some stage of distress and 2 million more are “underwater” — Romney and the other candidates have offered few concrete solutions.

All the contenders in Florida’s Jan. 31 primary argue that repealing new federal bank regulations and reforming or dismantling mortgage guarantors Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would help free up lending and improve housing prices.

But beyond these popular ideas — which are sharply criticized by consumer advocates and some economists — there has been little talk of how to directly help the millions of homeowners facing foreclosure, and the millions more who will not recoup their home values for years or even decades.

Programs that could provide the most immediate relief generally run counter to the GOP contenders’ principles of reduced government regulation and limited market intervention. Still, a robust economic recovery is unlikely until more debt is written off, said Kathleen Day, with the Center for Responsible Lending.

“Economists on all sides of the political aisle seem to agree that we really have to do some principal write-downs,” Day said. “We need to modify people’s loans.”

The dearth of policy proposals is all the more glaring in light of the emotional stories heard at campaign events — stories of lost homes, lost jobs, bankruptcies and real estate losses.

Among theses are the experience of Tampa retirees Chris and Mary Lou Ferguson, who lost $200,000 when they sold their home.

“That’s our nest egg, gone,” said Mary Lou Ferguson, who also lost her job in the downturn and stood in a shuttered Tampa drywall factory Tuesday to hear Romney’s proposals for turning the economy around.

“The banks have to work with people who are underwater,” added Chris Ferguson. “Change the rules. Reasonable controls are good. That’s why things went bad because there were no controls.”

The disconnect between struggling homeowners and policy solutions up for debate may have been best illustrated during a roundtable discussion Romney held Monday in Tampa with eight people who lost homes, jobs and real estate businesses in the downturn.

All criticized banks for refusing to work with them to reduce interest rates and mortgage principals. Some pleaded for stronger government intervention.

Struggling to keep her business going after the recession, Land O’Lakes homeowner Lisa Shorts tried six times to reduce the mortgage on her home before the bank finally sent her a foreclosure notice.

“They have the capacity to take the loss,” she told Romney. “Why have they not been forced to do that?”

Romney sidestepped the issue, sympathizing, agreeing that banks need to do better but stopping short of promising more government efforts to push mortgage modifications, a solution many Republican economists and some of Romney’s own advisers have advocated.

Increasing modifications is controversial in a party that emphasizes fiscal responsibility and minimal government intervention in the economy.

For every homeowner who complains about their bank, there are others who view debt as a moral issue.

Tampa businessman John Coleman lost money on real estate investments in the housing slump but opposes mortgage write-downs. “Buy a house you can afford and honor your commitments, your debts,” he said. “I think that’s a core conservative value.”

Asked about the housing market at Monday’s NBC debate in Tampa, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum said simply, “Let capitalism work.”

READ MORE

Article source: http://htpolitics.com/2012/01/24/candidates-offer-few-concrete-solutions-to-mortgage-crisis/

Deepening the wound, Sarasota-Bradenton found out that it was losing its second-largest carrier through a call from a mid-level manager.

“Welcome to the new world of American business,” airport board member Henry Rodriguez said Monday.

He and other board members reviewed how Sarasota-Bradenton got dumped and brainstormed about what to do next.

Southwest Airlines, which acquired fellow low-cost carrier AirTran in September 2010, will cut Sarasota-Bradenton out of the picture of the merged airlines beginning in August.

Losing AirTran will eliminate direct flights between Sarasota and Chicago, Baltimore and Milwaukee. AirTran accounted for 26 percent of the airport’s 1.37 million passengers in 2011, behind only Delta.

Airtran had drastically altered the fare structure at Sarasota-Bradenton when it began flying locally in December 2004, prompting carriers like Continental, Delta and US Airways to lower fares to compete.

In the hopes of finding an AirTran replacement, the airport board on Monday beefed up incentives offered to new carriers.

Fredrick “Rick” Piccolo, the airport’s chief executive, said he is already talking to other airlines about picking up the slack. He said he talked to Delta, JetBlue Airways, US Airways, Continental and Spirit Airlines.

Piccolo, who was instrumental in landing AirTran for Sarasota-Bradenton, said Delta expressed interest and that JetBlue is willing to “discuss a couple of destinations.” US Airways has scheduled a meeting for early next month.

Continental left Sarasota-Bradenton in September 2008, citing rising fuel costs. At the time, it accounted for about 10 percent of the airport’s passenger load.

Thinking longer term, board members also voted to look into beefing up marketing to countries like Brazil, Russia, India and China.

Thinking like a carrier

To pick up a new carrier, airline industry analyst Bob McAdoo said Sarasota-Bradenton should start by considering which originating cities it is losing, and which carriers fly those routes.

In general, airlines are not going to apply capital to places that are away from their hubs, McAdoo and another analyst said. Instead, they are more likely to make incremental additions to route structures that add traffic from originating cities.

“The vast majority of traffic at SRQ are people coming to enjoy the climate or go see grandma,” said McAdoo, a director at Avondale Partners LLC.

A more likely scenario, he said, would involve attracting a carrier like Frontier Air, which has a meaningful presence in Milwaukee and in Chicago.

Two other possibilities are low-cost carriers Allegiant Air — already a carrier at Charlotte County Airport — and Fort Lauderdale-based Spirit Airlines, McAdoo said.

“There has been business coming out of Chicago and out of Baltimore and those guys occasionally get involved in things like that,” he said.

Piccolo was clearly irked at the way AirTran gave notice that it would be ending its seven-year relationship here — along with flights that carried 365,000 passengers annually. Piccolo described the delivery as “somewhat unprofessional” in manner.

When airlines typically pull out of airports, Piccolo said, a senior executive will fly in to tell airport officials and employees and “look them in the eye.”

Instead, Friday’s news was delivered through a phone call by a “mid-level” executive, he said.

Piccolo called the timing of several payments to AirTran “ironic” considering the airline’s decision.

“The morning we sent them the letter saying we’re about to send you a check for $250,000, on top of $175,000 worth of advertising support sent in December” the call about the departure came, Piccolo told the airport’s board.

Irritation aside, airport board members appeared calm about AirTran’s pending loss. Several predicted it would cause only short-term pain.

To hopefully speed the replacement process, the board voted Monday to beef up its existing incentives. That included adding $500,000 to a $1 million fund available for marketing to lure a new carrier.

The panel also agreed to boost the incentive amount the airport would pay for each passenger of a new carrier from $5 to $7.

The airport and local governments provided AirTran almost $4 million in incentives to come here.

Why?

Some aviation experts had predicted Southwest would keep AirTran flying in this region.

Michael Boyd, an aviation consultant from Evergreen, Colo., predicted more than a year ago that Sarasota-Bradenton would be a boon to the Southwest “WN” system.

“Traffic flows at secondary markets such as Bloomington and Sarasota are part of the assets that Southwest is purchasing. They are critical to the success of the ATL hub,” Boyd wrote in an analysis of the Southwest-AirTran merger. “Also, these secondary markets open WN to additional corporate-travel potential.”

Boyd could not be reached for comment Monday.

But McAdoo, the Avondale analyst, said that Sarasota-Bradenton’s proximity to Southwest’s busy hub at Tampa International Airport, together with flights from Fort Myers, made Sarasota-Bradenton an easy cut.

“To the extent that they try to build up Sarasota, it only makes it more difficult to generate business through Tampa.”

Article source: http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20120123/article/120129787