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Archive for the 'St. Petersburg' Category

Finding — and financing — the perfect Pinellas County home

Stephanie Henningsen

I met Stephanie a while back, and she told me a story about how she was able to buy her own home, even though she was a single woman at the time living on one paycheck.  Not only was she able to buy the home, but she was also able to finance an extensive renovation that brought back a fine old home in St. Petersburg that deserved to be saved. I asked her if she would describe the process for my blog. Here is the first installment — there will be more coming.

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By STEPHANIE HENNINGSEN

I’ve always been attracted to older homes, the homes you find in historical neighborhoods immediately outside the downtown areas of municipalities around the country. It’s the details that draw me in – lots of windows, high ceilings, wood floors, crown molding.

Many of these remodeled homes come with a price tag that is way out of my range. However, I found a way to live in my dream home (complete with wood floors!) without going broke in the process.

A friend told me about the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA), an advocacy program designed to help:

• Homeowners refinance mortgages
• Low-income families find an affordable home
• Turn over neighborhoods by offering mortgages that allow homeowners who make above a certain income to buy a run-down home and remodel it.

NACA helps potential buyers through the following steps to prepare them for homeownership.

Once I had completed these steps, I was ready for the next adventure – finding my dream home.

Tags: first time homebuyer, pinellas county, real estate, St. Petersburg

Fort De Soto is Pinellas County gem

North Beach, Fort DeSoto

Q — What is the very best beach in America, according to TripAdvisor, the world’s largest online travel community?

A — Fort DeSoto Park, right here in Pinellas County.

Fort De Soto is at the very southern tip of Pinellas County, within sight of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, which connects Pinellas County with Manatee County (home of Sarasota) to the south.

And TripAdvisor isn’t the only outfit that thinks so. In 2005, Dr. Beach (who rates beaches around the country, too) named Fort De Soto’s North Beach the best beach in the U.S.

Pinellas County maintains a number of parks, and Fort De Soto is the largest by far. It is made up of five separate islands and covers 1,130 acres. It was first opened in 1962, and almost 3 million visitors come by every year to sunbathe, swim, boat, kayak and fish.

Shore birds at Fort De Soto

The county bought the property from the federal government for just $12,500 in 1938. But then war broke out a few years later, and the property was sold back to the federal government (for a profit — $18,404) which used it as a bombing and gunnery range during World War II. After the war ended, the federal government sold it once again to Pinellas County, this time for $26,500.

We had some free time on Sunday afternoon and we visited Fort De Soto with our two grand-daughters. A lot of people were there enjoying the day, but the sheer size of the park made it feel sparsely populated. There is a 35-cent toll on the road that leads to the park, but Fort De Soto itself is free — not even a parking charge. But that may change soon, so this summer is a great time to explore the park for free.

Tags: beaches, fort de soto, pinellas county

Pinellas County’s brunch of brunches

Don Cesar Hotel

There’s brunch, with a nice variety of food and a decent price tag, maybe put out by a good local eatery. And then there is brunch put on by the Don CeSar Hotel, one of the premier hotels in the Tampa Bay region. This brunch is a few steps, or many steps, above the average, with smoked salmon and mounds of the best fresh fruit and carving stations for prime rib, lamb, ham and pork, as well as a dizzying array of fancy homemade desserts.

The Don CeSar is where we had brunch this morning. It was truly memorable and worth describing to anyone thinking about moving to Pinellas County.

First, a little bit about the hotel. The Don CeSar overlooks the Gulf of Mexico in the south part of the county, just south of St. Pete Beach and just

Don CeSar Hotel entrance

north of Pass-A-Grille Beach. It is pretty old but beautifully kept in bright pink paint with white trim.  It was built in the 1920s. Then, just as now, it is a place for the well-known and the well-to-do.

It became a convelescent center for the U.S. Air Force during World War II and then fell into such disrepair that it was abandoned and almost torn down in the 1970s. But local people put up a ruckus to save the Don, and someone bought it and renovated it to its present glory. It has been an icon of the Tampa Bay region ever since.

But back to the brunch; it features more than 200 separate items as well as pasta and omelette stations . There’s a dessert staion for crepes and a sundae bar. If you like bubbles with your brunch, there’s even complementary champagne.

We’ve lived in Pinellas County since 1993, and this was our first brunch trip to the Don CeSar. At around $100 for two, we won’t be going back every weekend, but it’s a nice treat or special occasion.

Tags: Don CeSar, pinellas, real estate

Like sports? Pinellas County has plenty

Tampa Bay Rays vs. Chicago White Sox

Last evening we journeyed down to St. Petersburg (that’s south Pinellas County as opposed to my home turf in North Pinellas County) to take in a Tampa Bay Rays game at Tropicana Field. The trip included a flat tire and an hour-and-a-half at a St. Pete Tire Kingdowm store, but that’s another story.

A lot of people don’t like Tropicana Field because it’s a domed stadium with astroturf and it’s, well, ugly. But I like it just fine. The access off I-275 is easy and there’s plenty of parking (believe it or not, we found an on-street spot right on Central Avenue, a stone’s throw from the ballpark). There’s plenty of lot parking around the field that costs around $10.

The access into and out of the Trop is easy. Once inside, ushers and other workers are always nodding and smiling at you. Best of all, it is always 72 degrees inside, and it never rains. In west-central Florida it’s usually in the mid-90s at game time during the summer, and rain is pretty common in the late afternoon and early evening, so that dome over the stadium comes in handy, even if true baseball fans long for green grass and blue skies.

The Rays management floated an idea for a new outdoor stadium on the water on downtown St. Pete last year. But with no parking (fans would have had to use existing downtown parking garages and then walk several blocks to the stadium) and not very good access for traffic, the reaction was lukewarm at best.

Anyway… this part of Florida is a great place for sports fans. We have the Rays in St. Pete (remember, they went to the World Series last year) and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who play in Raymond James Stadium across the bay in Tampa and who always put a good team on the field. One doesn’t think immediately about hockey and Tampa Bay at the same time, but we have an NHL team, the Tampa Bay Lightning, who play in a beautiful facility over in Tampa. We don’t have NBA basketball,  but you can still satisfy that urge if you don’t mind driving an hour and a half over to Orlando.

If you are a college football fan, Florida is heaven. The University of South Florida (in Tampa) has a great team, and you already know about the University of Florida and Florida State.

Want more? Spring training and Grapefruit League baseball, right here in North Pinellas County; great college baseball, too.

I took the picture at the top of this post from a box behind home plate. We had a great time, even though the Rays lost to the White Sox, and even in spite of the flat tire.

Tags: baseball, pinellas county, real estate, sports

Phoenix’s new light rail system would look good here

Phoenix's light rail: A model for Tampa Bay?

Good question. Let me answer that question with another question: What is the single most obvious lack in the Tampa Bay region, which is the 19th largest metro area in the U.S.?

ANSWER: Light rail transportation.

There are lots of wonderful things to talk about when it comes to Tampa Bay – the beaches, the great airport, the Bucs and the Rays and the Lightning, to name just a few.

But one thing we don’t like to talk about very much is transportation. Getting around here can be tough – the roads are clogged with traffic, especially during the winter “Snow Bird” season. There are just three bridges (well, two bridges and a causeway) that connect the Pinellas side of the bay with the Tampa side.

What we need is some sort of light rail system. It will no doubt happen some day, but so far we have lacked the political will (and the financing) to get it done.

And that brings me to Phoenix.

Just like Tampa, Phoenix used to have street cars, but they went away sometime around 1950. Since then it has been cars, cars and more cars on the region’s streets. Like Tampa Bay, Phoenix has undergone huge growth in the past 50 or 60 years, and local transportation has failed to keep up with the demand.

Until now.

On Saturday (that’s Dec. 27, 2008) Phoenix unveiled its new light rail system with a big party that included everything from free train rides to live music (by, among others, Grand Funk Railroad). Nearly 100,000 residents turned out for the region-wide shindig.

The new system cost $1.4 billion and, for now, only runs the 20 miles between central Phoenix and Mesa. But the system will expand and grow to include many other areas in the coming years.

It took about 15 years to plan the system, and then another four years to build it. Financing it was tricky, just as it will be here if light rail ever comes to Tampa Bay. Still, the Phoenixites (Phoenixers? Phoenicians?) got it done with a special transportation tax along with federal grants and sales taxes.

Planners in Phoenix say the system should have a huge positive effect on downtown business, should lighten auto traffic significantly, and should encourage housing near the rail line and discourage sprawl. In other words, it will be more than just a transportation system; it should also change the face of the overall Phoenix community for the better.

Fares are $1.25 per ride, or you can get an all-day pass for $2.50.

If you compare the new Phoenix system with what could take place here in Tampa Bay, keep in mind the 20-mile range of the Phoenix light rail system; that’s about that same distance as downtown St. Petersburg to downtown Tampa. That image may disappoint those of us who live in North Pinellas County. But if they built a St. Pete-to-Tampa track and started service there, it would be only a matter of time before the service reached north into our part of the county.

Imagine a big circular route from St. Pete over to Tampa, out through New Tampa and then west to North Pinellas or even South Pasco, then down to South Pinellas again. Wouldn’t that be great?

If you want to learn more about the Phoenix system, go to http://www.raillife.com/.

Tags: light rail, phoenix

Good news from Tampa Bay’s other airport

The downside of all that praise is that it tends to overshadow Tampa Bay’s other airport, St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport, which sits in Pinellas County on the other side of the bay at the western end of the Howard Franklin Bridge, in St. Pete.

St. Petersburg-Clearwater is no slouch when it comes to size — it sits on about 2,000 acres, is fully-certified and has three runways, including one 8,500-footer. It is also home to the most active Coast Guard station in the world.

Things were going really well for St. Petersburg-Clearwater, and the facility hosted 1.3 million passengers in 2004. But then, the airport losat its two biggest carriers, and that number has declined drastically, to about 400,000 passengers this year.

But now there’s good news for the airport. Allegiant Air, a discount airline that serves travelers mostly in the Midwest and East, has agreed to bring a number of new flights to St. Petersburg-Clearwater, starting in November. The first flights will come from Allantown, Pa., Lansing, Mich., and Rockford and Peoria, Ill. There will be more flights from other smaller cities after that.

The new Allegiant flights are expected to swell passenger numbers at the airport by about 250,000 flyers per year.

Tags: airport tampa bay clearwater

No tax cut in St. Pete?

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ve seen several stories about how rising property valuations have increased property taxes, and how some counties and municipalities have been at least thinking about cutting the mill rate to provide some property tax relief.

Of course, the trouble is that cuts in the mill rate are seldom (never?) substantial enough to get property taxes down to where they were before the property values began to rise. Some government jurisdictions find the prospect of “found money” just too tempting to ignore. It’s like getting a substantial tax increase without having to actually vote on raising taxes.

The latest story appeared today in the St. Petersburg TIMES, headlined “Rising fees may cancel tax cut.” St. Petersburg recently announced a 5 percent tax cut for 2007. But now the city is saying that increases in water, sewer and trash pickup fees will go up an average of $4.15 per month, and that will effectively wipe out any of the tax cut benefits.

The St. Petersburg City Council will consider the fee increases during their two meetings in September.

This has been a tough year for homeowners and prospective homeowners in Florida. As I write this, the latest tropical storm/hurricane (Ernesto) is heading our way, and all the hurricanes of the past couple of years has driven home insurance rates way up. Also, the hot real estate market of the past two years has pushed up property values, and that has led to great increases in property taxes.

Counties and municipalities need to have the political will to return a portion of that new-found money to the taxpayers. I read recently that Pinellas County will enjoy an additional $140+ million this year just because of new tax revenue resulting from higher property values.

I realize that the cost of running government goes up, and that someone has to pay for the services that we demand. Still, county and municipal commissioners shouldn’t look at all this additional revenue as “found money.” The people who pay these taxes are in serious need of some relief, and our elected officials need to deliver it.

Tags: St. Petersburg, taxes