Tampa, Fla., Port Hotel Developers Seek New Extension

. October 14, 2008

By Steve Huettel, St. Petersburg Times, Fla.

Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

TAMPA, FL, December 8, 2005. Developers of a long-delayed conference center, hotel and condo project on public land at Tampa's port are asking for another year to begin construction.

Tampa International Technology Center LLC must break ground on the project by March 30 to keep its lease option with the Tampa Port Authority.

But developers discovered a problem rezoning the property that they say can't be worked out by the deadline. They want the agency to grant an extension until March 2007.

"A complex, trophy project takes time," said Robert Abberger of Trammell Crow Co., development manager for the project. "We're not building a warehouse here."

The port authority, however, may be running out of patience. Port commissioners approved the original lease option and development agreement for a group led by Murray Klauber, founder of the Colony Beach & Tennis Resort at Longboat Key, in March 2001. They extended the deal three times, most recently in 2004.

Port staffers are talking with Klauber's representatives about another extension but have questions, said port director Richard Wainio.

"He's got to have a solid plan likely to be approved by the city and all the agencies involved," he said. "We want to see some concrete evidence of progress."

The project is nothing if not ambitious.

Plans call for a 45-story luxury hotel and condo tower that would be almost as tall as Tampa's biggest skyscrapers. It would include 400 hotel rooms and 182 condos, whose owners could use hotel amenities such as the spa and room service.

The conference center is designed to beam corporate meetings and training sessions around the globe via satellite, fiber-optic cable and wireless systems.

It would include three amphitheaters with seating from 100 to 250 people, an exhibition hall and meeting rooms.

But the project's scale and location -- on waterfront land with a slip leased to a ship repair yard -- has attracted critics and skeptics.

Industrial businesses say the deal is an example of how the port authority has pushed aside traditional maritime industry to make way for retail and real estate development.

That debate will likely rekindle when port commissioners take up extending the lease option, perhaps as soon as next month.

"The maritime community is dead set against giving a nonmaritime use like Klauber's project any additional consideration to use that waterfront," said Arthur Savage, president of the Port of Tampa Maritime Industries Association.

Tampa hotel broker Lou Plasencia predicted at a gathering of hotel and tourism officials in July that no one would finance such a project built on leased land.

Klauber has reached some milestones. Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, a luxury hotel management company, signed a letter of intent this year to operate the hotel.

A California merchant banking firm called Redwood Capital Advisors provided the port authority a letter outlining plans to put together a syndicate of institutional investors to finance the project.

Recently, developers hit a snag. The lease option calls for construction of the conference center, hotel and condo tower on a portion of the 11-acre site on Channelside Drive.

City zoning rules, however, don't allow structures that large -- about 1.6-million square feet -- on so small a piece of land. Developers are proposing to take the entire site at once, but say that will delay the start of construction beyond March 30.

An extension will benefit one industrial business, Abberger said. International Ship Repair & Marine Services, now required to vacate the property next month, could keep working there through September, he said.

Klauber's request for more time doesn't mean the project is losing steam, Abberger said.

"Iconic, visionary projects are complex by nature," he said. "The odds are against you, but the project is moving ahead and has great momentum."

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