Front Beach Road CRA

This month’s Friday at the Beach was held at the Edgewater Beach Resort yesterday and featured guest speakers Ben Faust from DRMP and Panama City Beach Planning Director Mel Leonard. The topic was the highly anticipated Front Beach Road CRA and details and updates.

CRA is short for Community Redevelopment Area and was created a couple of years ago because of the sprawling growth and development and concerns over whether the infrastructure in place could handle the automobile and pedestrian traffic in addition to the increase in strain to existing utilities infrastructure. The goal of the CRA is to not only increase the workability and viability of the infrastructure, but also to beautify the area and make it more pedestrian friendly and “walkable”.

The first project to begin as part of the CRA is Churchwell Drive, by the post office on the beach. Faust said that this was the first, not because of priority, but because the FDOT funds were ready for that one, so they decided to begin. Included in this section of the CRA will be landscaping, underground utilities and 127 parking spaces for the public beach access. I could be wrong on this date, but scheduled completion is in the summer of 2008.

The official “ground-breaking” for the Beckrich Road CRA will be on September 12, 2007 with approximately a 22 month construction time. I don’t have details as to what exactly this will involve, but I plan to stop by the DRMP office in the next couple of weeks. Currently they are working on getting some of the Edgewater property ready for these improvements.

In addition to the parcel purchased on Thomas Drive, the city is negotiating and preparing to purchase 8 other parcels on this section of Thomas Drive to help improve and prepare for the Multi modal Tram Station to go on the large parcel the link shows you above. They are also planning on having a separate Station on the west end of Panama City Beach around the Highway 79 area on the City Hall Campus. Faust mentioned that in the designing of the East End Multi modal Station, that they recognize that it needs to be more than just a tram station, it needs to be a place where people will want to gather and it has got to offer amenities that people will use and enjoy in addition to being beautiful.

The actual Front Beach Road planning is done with approval for the first phase to go before the city next month. The “typical” Front Beach Road layout will the the 100′ width streetscape example with a Tram pullout lane, pedestrian walkways and bike paths on either side of the road way. Although, now that I think about it, I don’t know that most of the roadway will be like the 66′ wide example, with the 100′ wide example representing what the roadway will look like periodically at Tram stops.

The end result will feature walkways all along Front Beach Road, landscaping to accentuate the roadways and beautify the pedestrian experience and bike and transit lanes so that people will be able to move up and down the beach without their cars, I can’t wait.

For updates visit PCBOnTheMove.com

Pictures from the event.

Pictures of Pier Park and Churchill Road Improvements

Market Updates, More Positive Agents

John Skinner, a local agent also known as the “Condo Man” was kind enough to allow me to post his monthly newsletter providing some current data on sold pre-construction condos.

As of right now, he indicates that the MLS shows:

188 active 1 bedroom gulf front condos
326 active 2 bedroom gulf front condos
134 active 3 bedroom gulf front condos
32 active 4 bedroom gulf front condos
86 sold 1 bedroom gulf front condos built 2003 – 2007 this year so far
188 sold 2 bedroom gulf front condos built 2003 – 2007 this year so far
41 sold 3 bedroom gulf front condos built 2003 – 2007 this year so far
9 sold 4 bedroom gulf front condos built 2003 – 2007 this year so far

This brings the total of new condos sold this year to 254. He also notes that the current inventory has gone down consistently since August 2006. (more)

I continue to get emails from agents telling their positive stories:

When I watch the news and they say that the real estate market is doomed, I look at my team partner and say so then why have we already closed over 13 million in production numbers this year? Why are we so stacked with customers that we are literally forced to work 7 days a week to keep on top of all of the deals we are currently working on? My 2 person Realtor Team did over 15 million in 2005 which everyone sites as our “boom” year. If we close a fraction of the deals we are currently working on then we will exceed our 2007 goal of 20 million in closed production numbers with ease. I wonder what our numbers could have been this year if we had some positive press instead of all the negative…….hmm…..

Stephanie Adams, Realtor

ADAMS TEAM

ERA Chipola Realty

http://www.AdamsTeam.net

Florida Home Insurance

Despite promises of a new Governor, urgings, and passed bills, Florida home owners have yet to see any relief on their insurance premiums. Personally, my premium went up 33%, but from what I heard from readers and other locals, this is nothing. I talked with some whose premiums went up 100% and more. So far, the average final rate filing is at an increase of over 30% although the insurance commissioner’s office has rejected these increases. The insurance companies seem to be having trouble making everything pencil with the estimated $40 billion paid out by insurance companies during the active hurricane seasons of 2004 and 2005, claiming that they still have to have enough cash on hand should we have another active hurricane season, despite how painful it may be to the wallets of the policy holders.

Front Beach Road CRA

As some of you may know, there is a CRA (community redevelopment area) for all of Front Beach Road. This was created to funnel some of the tax money from all the new condos into improving the infrastructure. Planned is a complete reworking of all of Front Beach Road, along with many of the feeder streets as well. The vision seems awesome and will certainly be beautiful when it is done. I’m just wondering when it WILL be done.

I’ve seen little activity other than the Churchwell Drive improvements. I think the answer may be that they will start on another project when they complete Churchwell Drive, but I don’t understand why that can’t start other projects more immediately. If someone has some insight to this, or more information, that would be great.

PCBOnTheMove.com seems to have some pretty good information, but it is a little vague. I sent an email to info@pcbonthemove.com asking for more specifics on project information, including projected start and end dates. I got no response last time I sent them an email, so hopefully they’ll respond this time.

The plans for the redevelopment of Front Beach Road include an expansion of the road way to a combination of 66′ wide and 100′ wide road ways with three lanes and a dedicated tram/bike lane on each side. There is a planned multi-modal tram station proposed at the east end of Front Beach Road, just down from Walmart.

At the web site, there is a short movie showing and explaining what the new Front Beach Road will be like. All in all, it is going to be a great thing, I’m just a little impatient, and want it now.