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Archive for the 'Clearwater' Category

Home refinance program expanded

     We’ve written here in the past about tax credits and about government programs aimed at saving homes from foreclosure and making home payments more affordable. Now, it looks as though the Obama Administration wants to expand those programs to make them apply to more borrowers than before.
 

    Until now, those government programs have been available to people whose mortgage amounts are up to 105 percent of a home’s value. This week, the administration announced that it wants to raise that limit to 125 percent of value.
Here are some of the conditions that apply:

• The mortgages in question must be owned or backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.
• The applicants for new financing must be current on their mortgage payments.

     It is estimated that 30 percent of all mortgages are for amounts that exceed their homes’ values.
     The expansion of this federal home refinance program is an acknowledgement that the original program fell far short of expectations. When it was announced in March, the Obama Administration said it hoped that it would help 4-5 million homeowners who were upside-down on their mortgages. But in the middle of June, the administration admitted that only about 20,000 homeowners had applied to refinance their mortgages under the plan.
One problem has been rising interest rates. Current rates are around 5.5 percent, up from 4.84 percent in April. That rate increase has put a damper on refinances. The government hopes that the new expansion will encourage more homeowners to refinance their homes, and those refinances will make the homeowners less likely to default on their mortgages.
     Got a home in Palm Harbor, Dunedin, Clearwater, or anywhere else in Pinellas County with a mortgage bigger than the home’s value? This expanded program may be for you.

Tags: making home affordable, mortgages, pinellas county, refinance

New data indicates declines in Tampa Bay home values may be slowing

Are we finally starting to see some stabilization in the value of homes in Pinellas County? According to Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Home Price Index, the answer might be yes.

According to Index data released yesterday, home prices in Tampa Bay fell 0.7 percent from April to May. That works out to an annual rate of 8.4 percent – the lowest rate in quite a while.  Just two months previously, the 30-day decline was 2.7 percent, which translates to an annual rateof decline of 32.4 percent.

The Index said the annual decline of home values from April 2008 to April 2009 was 21.3 percent, the seventh-worse performance among the 20 cities that the index tracks. The worst was Phoenix, which recorded a home value decline of 35.3 percent.

Here is why real estate agents and others are watching these statistics: What we have been seeing for some time now is a steady increase in the number of home sales in Tampa Bay, accompanied by an equally steady decline in sales prices. The increase in sales has contributed to a decline in the home inventory in the Multiple Listing Service, which is good; but home prices have been continually forced down, due in part to foreclosures and distressed sales.

These trends have made us wonder just where the bottom of the market is in terms of home values. These new figures from Case-Shiller may help us find that answer. Of course, it is only one month; and other variables such as higher mortgage interest rates could slow sales and depress home values all over again.

If you would like to see the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index data for yourself, go here.

Tags: home valies, Palm Harbor, pinellas county, Tampa Bay

Things are happening in Downtown Clearwater

The Rays' Hummer

There’s a lot more to major league baseball than what goes on on the field.

Take the Tampa Bay Rays, for example.  The Rays are a young team, having been formed just 11 years ago. They made it to the World Series last year, but not before nine seasons of last-place baseball. The product on the field simple wasn’t enough to draw fans to the park, so the Rays spent lots of time and money developing community-based efforts that would, hopefully, spark interest in the team.

I saw an example of that effort not long ago in downtown Clearwater.

There is a regular monthly event in downtown Clearwater called Fourth Friday. On the fourth Friday of every month, late in the day, vendors start setting up on Cleveland Street, which has been roped off for just that purpose. People turn out to walk along Cleveland street, buy food and other items from vendors, and just generally enjoy Clearwater’s much-improved downtown.

On the day I was there, the Tampa Bay Rays had their special Hummer there, along with a stage set up to host the Ray’s pre-game and post-game radio shows on WDAE, the Sports Animal. The Rays were actually playing the Florida Marlins in Miami that night, but the live radio programs that opened and closed the game would be coming live from downtown Clearwater.

As workers set up the stage, young Rays employees were busy handing out white Rays t-shirts and other team goodies.

The Rays are always looking for more fans. And Clearwater is always looking for more people to come downtown and enjoy what is offered there.

Tags: baseball, Clearwater, downtown

Shedding a little light on downtown Clearwater real estate

Lamp post in downtown Clearwater

By now you’ve probably figured out that I have something of a weakness for lamp posts. There’s one up at the top of this blog, providing a little illumination for the Pinellas Newsboy. Also, I’ve done posts showing lamp posts in Dunedin, Tarpon Springs, over at Disney and, now in Clearwater.

It’s not just a personal weakness for lamp posts. I think they are good metaphors for the emerging downtowns that we are seeing in North Pinellas County. These downtowns have lived through some pretty steep declines as downtown areas have been allowed to decay as they have been forgotten in favor of suburban developments. But they are roaring back as we come to appreciate what they have to offer in terms of shopping, dining and living.

Downtowns offer something community-wise that simply can’t be matched. We’re lucky to have these areas re-emerging, and we also are lucky to have had residents, business people and political leaders who have been able to share the vision of reinvigorated downtowns.

By the way, this lamp post is one of many that line Cleveland Street in downtown Clearwater.

Tags: Clearwater, real estate

Post office is choice piece of Clearwater real estate

Clearwater Post Office

With all the talk about the current economic stimulus package, we should note that a very similar effort took place in the 1930s in response to the Great Depression. The Roosevelt Administration gets the credit (or blame) for all of the federal spending that took place back then to try to get the economy moving again, but less well known is that federal stimulus spending took place during the previous Hoover administration, as well.

An example of that was the so-called Elliot bill, which greatly increased the amount of federal spending for local building programs.  Up to that time, much of the federal spending on building construction was focused on buildings constructed inside Washington, DC. The Elliot bill bumped up federal spending for building projects from $315 million to $415 million, and most of that extra  money was aimed at building projects beyond Washington.

One of them turned out to be the new post office building in Clearwater, Florida. In 1931, Clearwater officials received a letter from Washington saying that $150,000 in federal funds had been earmarked for a new Clearwater Post Office.

That was a very big deal at the time. Clearwater’s population had been exploding, and one institution that was really feeling the pinch was the local post office.  The original post office on Cleveland street was really cramped, and when the new Scranton Arcade building was completed the post office was moved into that building. But even that wasn’t adequate — Clearwater was definitely going to need a new post office facility if it was to keep up with the increasing population demands.

So construction got under way right across the street from the Scranton Arcade. A local architect , Theodore Skinner, was hired to design the new building, and a Florida construction company, Walt & Sinclair of Palm Beach, was hired to do the work. The work went swiftly and the new building, made of limestone quarried in the Florida Keys, was dedicated on Oct. 9, 1933.

Then, as now, the federal dollars were meant to stimulate local economic growth. Local architects, designers, builders and materials were specified. The Clearwater Post office is a great exampleof Mediterrean Revival architecture. It was placed on the National Registerof Historic Places in the 1980s.

Tags: architecture, Clearwater, Post Office, real estate

Scranton Arcade was important example of Clearwater real estate

Scranton Arcade

When I posted the last article on Clearwater real estate wall art, I noticed something in the picture that puzzled me a little — a detail in the mural that showed a store front with the words “Scranton Arcade” over the front entranceway. I had never heard of the Scranton Arcade before, so I decided to do a little research.

What I discovered is that the Scranton Arcade building was a very exciting bit of downton Clearwater architecture that was built in the mid-1920s. It covered a whole city block of Clearwater real estate, and it contained everything from Clearwater’s post office (before the current very beautiful Clearwater Post Office was built a few years later) to a bakery to the Clearwater offices of the St. Petersburg TIMES newspaper.

The Clearwater Evening Independent newspaper did a story in 1924 on the construction of the building. It explains quite a bit about the building and the role it was to play in what was then Clearwater’s blossoming downtown:

Clearwater Evening Independent – June 16, 1924

The Scranton Arcade, said to be the largest building of its kind in South Florida, is approaching completion. Blue and buff case tile is now being placed below the large plate glass windows on the Garden Avenue side, and laying of floor tile is to begin this week.

 Construction work on this arcade has been held up, owing to delay in installation of an automatic sprinkler system, with which the entire building is to be furnished, A. M. Perdue, superintendent, said today, but he predicts the arcade will be ready for occupancy within 30 days.
 
The post office is to be located in the extreme southeastern corner of the new building, and everybody is interested in seeing the local postal department in the new quarters, as the present post office, on Cleveland Street, is entirely inadequate for the purpose.

The Scranton Arcade is a beautiful structure, with sidewalls of apricot stucco, ornamented with art stone friezes. It occupies the entire block bounded by Cleveland Street, South Garden Avenue, Park Street and the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad tracks.  This is considered one of the finest business locations in Clearwater.

The construction is entirely of hollow tile ands brick, stuccoed throughout, with elaborate ornamental façade and Spanish tile coping finishing the top of the sidewalls. Wide corridors run through the building north and south and east and west and there is a spacious court under a big rotunda in the center.

Clearwater’s newest business building is divided into very attractive small shops, all of which have large plate glass windows, both on the streets and the arcade. The post office being located in the southeast corner, patrons of the post office will be obliged to pass all of the business places in the building. It is stated that these desirable shops and offices have already been leased.

The main feature of the Scranton Arcade, perhaps, is that its erection opens up a new business district on South Garden Avenue, and is but the forerunner of a number of attractive business buildings.

Other stores in the arcade included the Postal Telegraph Company, the post office, Rellop’s Smoke Shop, Frank J. Booth Insurance, a newspaper office, a beauty shop and the Dutch Kitchen restaurant.

I haven’t been able to find out exactly what happened to the Scranton Arcade building, but the modern Atrium office building now stands at the corner of Cleveland and South Garden.  If you know the fate of the Scranton Arcade, please post something here by clicking on “comment.”

Tags: Add new tag, Clearwater, scranton arcade

Clearwater real estate wall art

If you’ve been reading this blog for the past few weeks, you know I have some interest in wall art and murals. I’ve posted an example or two, and I came across some really nice examples in downtown Clearwater when I visited there a few days ago.

I’ll have to do a post on some of the nice work that has been done in revitalizing downtown Clearwater in the past few years. Not all of it has been all that popular — for example, some people object to the curvy new Cleveland Street roadway, and the enormous black globes that have been placed on the median as decorations. If you miss one of the lefty-righty twists in the road, you could end up up with one of those big globes as a new hood ornament.

Still, downtown Clearwater us much more attractive and appealing than it was just a few years back. There’s some nice new condo housing there, and some nice restaurants and coffee shops, as well. Not to mention some fine examples of wall art that really lends some color and character to what was a very tired and rundown area.

I’ve found wall art in downtown Dunedun, and a couple of examples on the sponge docks in Tarpon Springs. Still, though, I think the local wall art capital is downtown Clearwater. I’ll be posting a few more examples in the coming weeks.

Tags: Clearwater, murals, wall art

Downtown Clearwater

Around 25 years ago, the city of Biddeford, Maine decided to try to bring some attention to its old downtown area.

Biddeford was an old mill town, and its brick mill buildings no longer housed the textile companies and other businesses that had depended on the water power that was provided by the adjacant river. In its heyday, enough money flowed through Biddeford to pay for a pretty nice downtown commercial area, with brick office and retail buildings as well as attractive municipal buildings.

Those buildings had once featured very nice architectural details, but many of them had been covered up or removed as the buildings had gone through a series of renovations.

The old Peninsular Telephone Co. building in Clearwater

But those renovations seldom extended up to the upper floors and the rooflines. If you looked up there, you could see some very fancy and attractive brick designs, windows and eaves. The city wanted to draw attention to those high-up fancy old touches and details rather than the decidely unattractive street-level renovations.

So they came up with this slogan: “Look Up, Biddeford!” They used that slogan on the cover of brochures and posters that featured details of Biddeford’s best top-story architectural work.

All of which is a long way of getting around to an old brick building in downtown Clearwater that houses a Dunkin’ Donuts shop. If you walk down Cleveland Street you may only notice the donut shop facade, but if you walk on the other side of the street and happen to look up, you will see a very beautiful three-story brick building with some nice architectural touches not unlike the ones 1,500 miles to the north in Biddeford.

I was in downtown Clearwater late Friday and I spent a little time admiring the building. In the middle of the brick facade above the second-story front windows is a granite square with a single carved word: “Telephone.” That got my curiousity stirred up, so I did some research when I got home.

This Cleveland Street building was built in the early 1920s for the Peninsular Telephone Co., Pinellas County’s first real telephone company which was granted a franchise to operate in Clearwater 1901. The company was actually formed in Bradenton by a couple of brothers who got into the telephone business when they installed a telephone in their grocery store so customers could phone in their food orders.

That idea worked so well that they opened other food stores, all with telephones. Soon, they found that the telephone business had more profit potential than the grocery business. before long, they were operating telephone companies in a number of Florida Counties.

In this particular building, Peninsular Telephone ran a commercial office in the rear of the first floor, while the switchboards and phone operators toiled away on the second floor. A Rexall drug store occupied the front of the first floor.

Later, Peninsular Telephone sold out to General Telephone, which became GTE, which became Verizon.

Later, the 9,000-square-foot building fell into disrepair, as did all of the downtown Clearwater area. At some point, the beautiful windows and brick work were covered with a slick slathering of stucco. For a number of years, the first floor was occupied by a commercial blood bank facility which paid for blood donations, mostly from local homeless people.

Around 2003, the stucco was stripped away and the building was restored. It now is a proud component of downtown Clearwater’s re-emergence.

Tags: Clearwater, downtown, telephone building

Is this the best pizza in Pinellas County?

Monty's Pizza

There’s all kinds of different pizza. There’s thin crust, thick crust, Chicago style, New York style and Sicilian pizza, just to name a few. People are particular about their pizza, and not everyone thinks the same way when it comes to deciding what’s good, and what’s not so good.

All that being said, we like Monty’s Pizza in Clearwater. A lot.

We go there just about every Sunday night, and we always order the same thing: a medium deluxe. At Monty’s, a deluxe pizza has five toppings of your choice. For us, that means pepperoni, sausage, extra cheese, olive oil and mushrooms. (There’s one waitress there who doesn’t think olive oil should be a topping. When she waits on us, we order onions, too.)

Monty’s is owned by a family from Connecticut, according to the story on the back of the menu. They have been turning out pizzas in Pinellas County since the early 80s. The restaurant itself is a bit funky, and that adds to the charm. Also, there’s an old Ford outside in the parking lot painted up to look like a NASCAR racer sponsored by Monty’s. If you drive by, you see the Ford before you see the actual “Monty’s” sign on the building.

Monty’s is in mid-county on Nursery, just west of Belcher. If you come on a Sunday night, we’ll probably see you there.

Tags: Clearwater, pinellas, pizza, restaurant

Clearwater’s Pier 60: The place for sunsets

I spent a very enjoyable day yesterday with a client from out of town, someone who has really fallen in love with Dunedin. I think we’ve found her and her family the perfect townhouse. In fact, they spent so much time on the Internet that they had a pretty good idea what property they wanted before they ever came to Pinellas County and got down to some serious looking.

Anyway, once we got done with our real estate business, she went off on her own to do some more exploring of the area. She ended up forgoing dinner, opting instead for some ice cream and a visit to Clearwater Beach to watch the sunset. This picture is one she took of Pier 60, the pier at Clearwater Beach where locals and tourists gather to watch the sunset. It’s a tradition that has been going on for the past 10 or 12 years, and it’s loosely based on the nightly sunset salute that’s been taking place at Key West for years.

As you can see by the picture, the sunsets are spectacular. But you will also enjoy the local musicians, the buskers (street performers) as well as the food vendors that set up every night. There’s plenty to do and see around here, and the Pier 60 sunsets are up at the top of the list.

Tags: Clearwater, Pier 60, sunset, things to do