Patience Pays Off

Patience Pays Off

Development by Sean Roth | Real Estate Editor

Eight years is a long time to wait, even for The St. Joe Co., the state's largest landholder.

That wait ended last month, when the first line of heavy machinery arrived on the Perico Island farm site to begin the two-year infrastructure process on SevenShores. Joe Romanowski was there watching and waiting, just like he had done for much of the past eight years.

But this time the relief of actually starting the development was palpable.

Romanowski is St. Joe's Mr. Perico. It was Romanowski who brought the land deal to the St. Joe Co. in 1998. It was Romanowski who worked as the local contact person for land approvals and later, many of the legal and political questions facing the developer.

Now it's his turn to have the real fun, selling and directing construction of the 686-unit project as its project and sales manager.

So with eight years of waiting behind him, was the 352-acre northeastern Perico Island development worth the hassle and trouble?

An unequivocal yes, Romanowski says.

"This is a unique site," Romanowski says. "St. Joe doesn't do cookie-cutter developments, but this was a site where we really could do something spectacular and special. You've got the water from the Gulf of Mexico. The entire development is going to have a 27-acre lake."

St. Joe is moving ahead with a plan to create a gated-community of two 12-story, three 10-story, four 7-story and another four 6-story condominium buildings, along with an 11,000-square-foot clubhouse and tennis courts. As part of the infrastructure work, Bradenton-based Woodruff & Sons Inc. will create a 20-foot deep lake throughout the interior of the development. St. Joe also plans to develop about 30,000 square feet of retail stores, restaurants and a marina with 126 wet slips.

But the story of SevenShores isn't about a huge project, which, obviously, it is. The SevenShores story is really about a lesson in perseverance.

Romanowski says as a developer you can never expect a project will be as easy as you think it will. However, it would have been hard to budget with enough wiggle room to cover the highly unusual confluence of approval problems. As for the ultimate reason for all the problems, Romanowski attributes it to the classic problem of being too far ahead of the pack of high-rise condominium developers.

"We were there first," Romanowski says. "We were just a lightning rod. I haven't seen this type of opposition for any of the projects that followed us. [But] that is just the development business today. It's not for the faint hearted or those without the financial wherewithal to hold on."

A cheerleader

About the same time St. Joe started nosing around the site, the first battle was just coming to an end. On June 10, 1998, under the threat of a lawsuit by the Manatee County Commission, the Bradenton City Council annexed the Manatee Fruit's Perico Island property. The county, which argued that the annexations would create an illegal pocket of city property surrounded by county property, eventually decided not to file suit. Later that year St. Joe put the property under contract.

In 2000, St. Joe was forced to be a sideline cheerleader as environmental groups such as ManaSota-88 teamed up with Bradenton Beach, Holmes Beach and Anna Maria city commissioners to sue the city of Bradenton, challenging the development plan. The groups opposed the project because of the height of the buildings, potential environmental concern and the possibility that it would slow down traffic along Manatee Avenue during a hurricane evacuation. Those multiple lawsuits stymied the development through much of the next four years.

In March 2004, St. Joe cut its proposal from nearly 900 units to the current 686 units. Two months latter, the Bradenton City Council approved the plan and once again, the county, other municipalities and environmental groups threatened to sue.

In October 2004, St. Joe and the county reached a compromise changing the development from five 10-story and eight seven-story condominium buildings to the current mix. By the end of 2004, aside from some closer scrutiny to its building permits and other applications from past opponents, the door was open for St. Joe to enter the planning process.

Last month, St. Joe finally received the necessary permits to start infrastructure work

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Where was Romanowski during the delay?

"I kept up on what was going on with the property," says Romanowski, a 13-year resident of Bradenton. "I was also selling other projects."

During the '90s, Romanowski worked on the sales side handling Arvida's final few buildings on Longboat Key, and later he moved to Riverhills in Valrico and then Rivercrest and Riverview in Tampa. Now, Romanowski is prepared to call the Perico site home for the next eight to 10 years.

He has few regrets.

"I can't really say there is anything we would have done different," he says. "You can only act on the best available information at the time. The process is simply a long one, even without a lawsuit."

One of the reasons St. Joe's survivied the PR onslaught from critics, Romanowski contends, was its use of experts. The list includes such big names as economist Hank Fishkind and traffic consultants Kimley-Horn and Associates Inc. They don't come cheap.

"Your task is not just to make a factual statement. It needs to be proven," Romanowski says. "We employ the best expert we can find in any field from traffic or environmental impact to construction and land development. People can object simply because they don't like a project. We respect that, because it keeps everything in check. But facts have to prevail. Facts like, most people who live in condominiums like ours won't be here during the hurricane season."

Of course, St. Joe's responses and current development still have not appeased all of the critics. Both Glenn Compton, of ManaSota-88, and Dan Lobeck, of the local group Control Growth Now, see the development as a loss for the community. Still, both admit their legal remedies are exhausted.

Romanowski is moving on, too, as he gets ready for the selling phase. He has eight contracts so far, despite starting to sell the condos off-season.

"I think the project offers the best opportunity for a world-class resort in western Manatee County," says Whiting Preston, whose Manatee Fruit Co. sold the land to St. Joe. "I think it's going to be a home run for the area."

Bigger price tag

In June of 2004, Hank Fishkind of Fishkind & Associates projected the then-unnamed Perico Island development planned by the St. Joe Co. would generate about $330 million in economic impact due to construction costs, commercial activity and household purchasing. That would also translate into $1.3 million for the city of Bradenton and $1.97 million for the Manatee County.

Two years later, with increased construction and materials costs and higher impact fees, Joe Romanowski, vice president and project manager and sales manager for St. Joe's Central Florida Region, says the economic impact for SevenShores has doubled. Plus, unit prices have risen from $400,000-$500,000 to between $700,000 and more than $1 million.