New Pier's Open, Fireworks set to go off tonight!

Having been under construction for the better part of 18 months, the new City Pier, Russell-Fields Pier is open for business. The new 1,500 foot pier, located right across from Pier Park opened at first light yesterday to a line of fisher-persons ready to catch anything from Bonita to King Mackeral to sharks. One onlooker said they spotted a 6 footer lurking around the pilings waiting for a stray crippled fish to gobble up.

I won’t go into too many details on the pier, as we’ve covered that, but I will say that it is long, very awesome, and super great to have it back. I promise, I won’t neglect you new pier, I promise I’ll visit you often!

If you want to fish, the cost is $6 per person, but if you just want to walk out, the cost is $2 with kids 6 and under getting in for free. The pier is open today, but will close sometime right after sunset for the fireworks display.

I was out there yesterday and they were getting all the fireworks set up, arranging the firing tubes in neat rowes. “The layout is perfect and the setup is just right,” said “Yankee” Scot Fischer, one of the “technicians” setting up the array of explosives. He was commenting on the rows of “blow-out” panels that are unique to this particular design of the pier. They seemed to be the perfect width. I’ll have more pictures next week of the setup as I’ll be back out there today.

Remember Our Veterans on Independence Day

Sometimes, amid all the celebration, bar-b-ques and fireworks, we forget what July 4th is all about – declaring our independance from Great Britain and the establishment of the greatest country on earth. With great cause we celebrate our freedom and liberties, and we are given a chance to come together with the one thing everyone in this country has in common – we live in the good ‘ol US of A.

Saturday, our Veterans will be remembered at the Veteran’s Memorial located in Aaron Bessant Park. It will be a time to remember those that gave all they had to protect our freedoms and those that served our country. The Veterans Memorial Ceremony will take place at 4 pm and will be honored by contributors such as Panama City Beach Mayor Gayle Oberst, Richard Jackson, and Mary Carmaichal. Also expected is Panama City Beach’s former Mayor, Lee Sullivan and County commissioner Mike Thomas.

Chaplain Hickenlooper will give the invocation, Marsha Rockhill from teh Saint Andrew School will seing the National Anthem, and Cmdr John Duncan and the Sea Cadets will be the Color Guard. The Military Order of the Purpole Heart is the wreath giver and will be presented to Debbie to place by Dan Laurita, the President of the Veteran’s Council.

There will also be a Tyndall flyover at 5 pm.

Fireworks on Grand Lagoon for the 4th of July!

Restaurant owners and Marinas come together to make history on historic Grand Lagoon.

July 4, 2009 Panama City Beach, FL: Capt. Anderson’s restaurant, Boatyard restaurant, The Treasure Ship restaurant, Lighthouse Marina and Pirates Cover Marina are reaching deep in their pockets to celebrate the 4^th of July in spectacular fashion on Grand Lagoon. “We’re making a little history on this historic old Lagoon,” said Sparky Sparkman, co-owner of Boatyard restaurant, “We have hired an awesome pyrotechnic group from Tennessee, Pyro Shows, Inc; these guys are going to put on an amazing show!” (www.pyroshows.com)

According to Lansden E. Hill, Jr., President and CEO of Pyro Shows, Inc., the Grand Lagoon fireworks show will begin at approximately 8:30pm.

“It’s going to be better than going to Disney,” according to Lisa Todd of the Treasure Ship, “I wish we had it back when I was a kid. Can you imagine? Especially here at the Ship – we’ve got pirates running around a big wooden ship, face painting going on – and then you add fireworks to the picture! Amazing!”

Steve Counts, of Counts Real Estate Group said, “Grand Lagoon is the perfect place for a fireworks show. I don’t know why we waited so long to do it! You’ve got the three marinas… Treasure Island Marina, Pirate’s Cove Marina and Lighthouse Marina… and the best restaurants on the beach lining the lagoon, with docks all the way around. There’s plenty of parking and tons of places for people to watch the show.”

“We’ve been here on the lagoon since 1967, and there’s never been a fireworks show on the 4^th,” reported Yonnie Patrons of Capt. Anderson’s restaurant. “When we had the kick off for Grand Lagoon National Tournament last year, we got a taste of what it could be when Bill Spann did the fireworks for that event, and we’ve all been talking about it ever since … how nice it would be to have fireworks for the 4^th. A lot of planning, a lot of work, and a lot of money has gone into it, and we’re all very excited about it. It’s been a lot of fun working with all our neighbors here on the lagoon to make it happen, too. I think this show will be the closest you can get to the actual fireworks action, and I really believe it will become the number one fireworks celebration in Northwest Florida – so, a lot of people are looking forward to being a part of history; they can say they were there the first time the FIRST 4^th of July fireworks lit up the sky over Grand Lagoon!”

“The fireworks will be launched from a platform at the center of the lagoon, so you have a spectacular 360 degree view. You can watch from a waterfront table at Capt. Anderson’s… or pick a seat, upstairs or down, at the Boatyard… I think our friends at The Treasure Ship may have the most spectacular views… they’ve got Hooks dockside, the Main Dining Room with those incredible floor to ceiling windows and, then, they have the very top of the ship – you can see the whole lagoon from up there,” Toni Davis of Boatyard explained, “Of course, we’ve got great views from Boatyard, too! We don’t usually do reservations at Boatyard, but we’ve had so many requests for waterfront tables on the 4^thsince the word got out about the fireworks. But, you don’t need a reservation to find a great spot on the docks to watch the show – or, you can come by boat.”

Panama City Beach in the New York Times

In a very interesting article posted in the New York Times, Panama City Beach was mentioned as one of the popular vacation destinations working hard to survive in the current economy. In several recent TDC and CVB meetings, Dan Rowe, chairman of the TDC, has praised Panama City Beach as a destination that has economically clutched the black ink while other destinations have slipped deeper into the red. This sentiment was again expressed by Mr. Rowe in the New York Times.

He was quoted as saying,

“The subtler sell is a hallmark of several campaigns intended to stimulate summer travel. For instance, the Convention and Visitors Bureau in Panama City Beach, Fla., is starting an online campaign with the YouTube unit of Google. Users who upload video clips to YouTube may see ads inviting them to enter a video creation competition sponsored by Panama City Beach (realfuncontest.com), with $50,000 in cash and prizes.

“There’s a lot of destinations that have had a tougher go of it than we have,” said Dan Rowe, president and chief executive of the Panama City Beach bureau, “but it’s tough here.”

“Demand has not come up to meet an increase in supply” of hotel and motel rooms, he added, “so rates are suffering; there’s deals to be had.” The campaign for the video contest is from Jennifer Barbee Inc. in Austin, Tex.; it is part of a summer marketing initiative by Ypartnership in Orlando, Fla.”

What I found most interesting NYT article, which focused on the difficult time vacation destinations are having economically, was the places on which it chose to focus. In the article you hear the big name destinations like Miami, Mexico, The Cayman Islands and even quotes from Travelocity representatives. My question is why did Panama City Beach make this article? If Stuart Elliot, the author of the article, were looking for smaller a destination to get a better range, why not Gatlinburg or Destin or even Daytona? Why Panama City Beach?

My only answer has to be exactly what Dan Rowe is talking about. Compared to many places around the world, Panama City Beach is one of very few who continues to do well despite the economy. It should also be considered that in the very near future, New York may well become one of Panama City Beach’s new feeder markets. I know for a fact that New York ranks in the top five on both PCBDaily as well as SeePCB for visitorship. This NYT article, in some ways, was an introduction to New York, a “Hey, look at us now, and envision 2010,” sort of thing. A city that is prosperous in hard times is a city that, when the times get good, should break new grounds. It’s too early to tell, but at least we know that the first impression on a potential game-changing relationship was one of which Panama City Beach business owners can be proud.

To read the complete NYT article click here.

Pier Park's Star Spangled Fourth of July Spectacular Schedule

Last year Pier Park’s 4th of July celebration set the standard for Panama City Beach events. This year’s show plans to set that bar a little higher. Coupled with the opening of the new Panama City Beach pier, this event should be one to remember. Here is the show schedule.

12 – 9 P.M. on SATURDAY, JULY 4, 2009

STAR SPANGLED SPECTACULAR AT PIER PARK
Family fun includes free concerts, fun and fireworks!

WHAT: Pier Park invites you to its Star Spangled Spectacular on Saturday, July 4! Mayor Oberst will kick off the festivities, followed by an exciting F-15 flyover.

The day of family fun includes friendly competitions for patriotic pet costume, golf cart decorating and sidewalk chalk art contests, with awards presented to each winner.

The Family Activity Tent sponsored by GAC will be open from 12 – 7 p.m. near the carousel. There will be lots of family fun to be had by all. There will also be a Crafts and Coloring Tent sponsored by Regions Bank.

Several bands will be spread throughout the property during the day, with country music star Mark Chesnutt headlining at Aaron Bessant Park at 7:30 p.m.

Families are invited to enjoy a dazzling fireworks display at dark after the Mark Chesnutt concert.

COST: Free and open to the public

WHEN: Saturday, July 4 from 12 – 9 p.m.

WHERE: Pier Park
600 Pier Park Drive
Panama City Beach, FL 32413

Bay’s First FRLA Meeting: “PCB Unprepared.”

On Tuesday afternoon, Bay County’s newly formed branch of the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association, or FRLA, met for the first time at the new Palms Convention center.

A long agenda couldn’t keep the conversation from remaining on a single topic: training. Comments from the likes of Julie Hilton, Jack Bishop and Paul Wohlford all centered on the need to and the benefit of having food/alcohol and hospitality training services for beach employees. “We need a lesson in hospitality,” Mr. Bishop acknowledged, “We sometimes treat our tourists like invaders.”

Conversations weren’t just about the concierge side of things, but the need to make sure the destination as a whole is versed in things like vendor responsibility, food safety, sexual harassment awareness and more. The inevitable goal of Bay County’s FRLA branch will be to lead the county in the delegation of efforts such as training and supplying information on regulatory compliance services. This training will be key in preparing for Bay County’s anticipated tourism boost when the new airport opens. The sentiment throughout the meeting was that, as of now, Bay County is simply not prepared on a professional level to handle the possible influx of new tourists.

Discussions about the airport during the meeting spurred a constructive debate on the need to extend training to Panama City Beach’s transportation sector. Mr. Wohlford stated frankly, “We need better trained ground transportation.” He went on to say. “These are our concierge. I think it’s important that these guys [transportation sector] are trained and knowledgeable about where to stay, where to eat and so on. They are going to be the first impression on our tourists.”

The Bay County FRLA branch began creating committees that will spearhead efforts, in conjunction with the CVB and local Chambers, to make sure standardized hospitality training is available for all local businesses. This will be the first step in making Panama City Beach a better overall destination for tourists both current and future.

More: Jimmy and Johnny Patronis were elected to the Restaurateur and Hotelier hall of fame. Expect to see quite a gala for their ceremony.

Free Fishing Seminar: June 27th

Sunjammers Watersports is holding a FREE fishing seminar on Saturday June 27th.

Whether you’ve been fishing since you could hold a rig or still have trouble figuring out when and what lure or bait to use, you should stop by the free fishing seminar hosted by Sunjammers Watersports. This seminar is a family friendly clinic on all there is to know about fishing from tying knots to casting nets. It’s open to the public and totally free, so grab your pole and tackle box and head out to Sunjammers Watersports.

Seminar will run from 10:00am – 2:00pm

Clinic schedule
10:00 – 10:45 knot and rigging.
11:00- 11:45 cast net throwing.
12:00 – 12:30 picking out your gear.
12:45- 2:00 working lures to catch trout and reds.

Sunjammers Watersports is located 315 N Hwy 79 Panama City Beach, Florida 32413. For more information on the clinic call 850) 235-2281.

Could This Be Love? TDC: Fall Marketing Preview

During Tuesday’s TDC Marketing Committee meeting concerning Fall/Winter marketing efforts, one of the most memorable, albeit most chuckle-inducing, comments came from Jack Bishop, who said, “selling Panama City Beach in the Fall is like selling swimsuits to Eskimos.” Well, while that statement has been true in the past, if the marketing committee and Y-partnership have their way, Eskimos everywhere might want to start shopping for sandals.

The phrase that stole the short meeting was a simple and catchy, “”Fall in Love Again with Panama City Beach,” a phrase unveiled by Peter Yesawich of Y Partnership which could provide a solid character for Panama City Beach’s spotty Fall Season. The romantic phrase may seem a bit transparent initially, but the idea behind it, as explained by Yesawich, is to target adult couples aged 45-64 who, once the kids have gone back to school, are looking for a reason to vacation. Based on Y Partnership’s research, 58% of leisure travelers took a trip with their spouses (no children) and did so most frequently during fall. He believes it’s possible to encourage that market by showcasing the many things to “love” about getting away to Panama City Beach.

This phrase’s lure hides within its applicability: create lots of small, festive events and tie in private sector business into one theme; i.e “Fall In Love with Shopping at Pier Park or Fall In Love with the Seafood Wine and Music Festival,” and all of a sudden you have mettle, a framework for which ideas can be attached. Yesawich’s plan is to apply the love theme as a seasonal draw similar to South Walton’s Autumn Tides promotion where a season’s worth of events are empowered by uniting them all under the same theme. Judging by South Walton’s success, it’s pretty a good idea.

The idea instantly became popular among the marketing committee and the meeting attendees. Even Mr. Buddy Wilkes found the love theme intriguing saying, “ ‘Fall in Love again’ may be the way to invite people to come see the new [Panama City] Beach and fall in love with it all over again. It’s easily applicable to other events.” Easy application to events, package deals and the hugely under-appreciated wedding market is what gives the theme life; the question remains as to what will make it work? The answer may not be as easily accepted.

Mr. Yesawich’s theme is merely a spring board idea. For the idea to take off, businesses locally have to buy into it collectively. Within the theme, condos, hotels and attractions are encouraged to promote couples and feature promotional rates and incentives to potential tourists. If everyone gets on that spring board and actually get out and promote it, the theme has a real chance of lifting off. This idea isn’t necessarily something that will boost fall business over one season, but could, over time, create a bit of a buzz for future seasons. If you can imagine a season filled with street festivals, outdoor concerts, wine tastings, music and art shows coupled with the seasonally low rates tied in to packages for couples, it all seems, from the onset, like a can’t-miss deal. But, its a long way from done.

The marketing committee plans to reconvene in 2 weeks to talk media, costs and coordination of what could be a truly successful attempt at generating fall business.

As Dan Rowe put it, “We must provide [potential tourists] a compelling invitation.” Is there a better invitation than good ol’ fashioned romance? You be the judge.

Laketown Wharf Showing Signs of Life

This Thursday, June 18^th2009, Sterling Resorts will host a grand opening ribbon cutting ceremony to celebrate 300 units available for rent. As many know, this announcement has been long in the making.

For those who have not followed the Laketown Wharf soap opera, Laketown Wharf, the towering Thomas Drive edifice completed back in 2007, was supposed to redefine Panama City Beach luxury as a city within a city with 765 total units and unique amenities unmatched on Panama City Beach like a Vegas-style musical fountain display, a 650-seat live performance theater, 5 restaurants, 1,000’s of square feet of retail space and a private lake.

But, due to economic nosedives and various other reasons, by September 2008 developer Jerry Wallace signed over the mostly empty resort to Corus Bank based out of Chicago. Even still, in February of 2009, Corus Bank reported a quarterly loss of $260.7 million and stated that more than a third of their “$4.1 billion in outstanding loans were nonperforming,” all the while the massive structure remained empty, all those lovely amenities wasting away. Lucky for them, in January Corus signed an agreement with Sterling Resorts to operate the condo’s rental management program.

That brings us to this week, when Sterling Resorts plans to rejuvenate excitement in the estimated $200 million property, opening its doors to vacationers. Sterling Resorts should do well considering the rental company currently manages 24 Gulf Coast properties between Panama City Beach and Bay St. Louis, Mississippi and has strong familiarity with the tourism trends on Panama City Beach. Currently, online rates at Laketown are set to compete: a 2 bedroom/2 bath for this weekend was set at $292.20, just a little more than I, personally, expected but not bad. If things go well, the opening should act as somewhat of a defibrillator, resuscitating a property in need of a new life.

If you intend on attending the ribbon cutting ceremony RSVP with Kristy Keen: 850-563-0457 or email here at kkeen@sterlingresorts.com

**Date correction: The event will be June 18th at 4PM**

The Face Lift PCB's Been Waiting For: Form-Based Regulations

Last Thursday, June 4^th, the City of Panama City Beach held a joint City Council and Planning Board workshop to discuss potential form-based design regulations that will dramatically affect future Panama City Beach developments. These form-based regulations, negotiated in part by Planning Works, 180 Degree Design and White and Smith Planning, are recommendations intended to provide standards that will create consistency and form between high-rise edifices and the neighborhoods that surround them.

A team of urban planning specialists, headed by Michael Lauer, urban planner Planning Works, helped explain in the 3-day workshop how adopting these new regulations will encourage higher quality future development while maintaining the small town beach lifestyle with an overall more attractive and walkable streetscape for Front Beach Road. These new regulations will also harmonize with future and current CRA developments such as the revamped Richard Jackson Boulevard.

These comprehensive regulations actually broke down into simple decisions for the board to discuss and eventually adopt:

Building Height Requirements
- Based on zoning buildings in residential /low intensity areas will max out at 35ft with a better overall definition of that requirement. Traditional areas will max out at 50ft with an allowance for greater height based on developments to that area. High Rise areas will see a flexible cap of 220ft, with an allowance for more height (with a decrease in footprint) to help promote variety.
Moving Buildings Closer to the Street
Eliminate Auto Oriented Design
- Lots of talk on this topic, but essentially parking lots will no longer be allowed on the street side. They will be required to park behind buildings or incorporated into the design of the building in the form of covered parking.
Internal Street Standard
Require Retail to Be Along the Street-Side

The goal of all this, as said by Michael Lauer, is to “keep the street fronts alive” by promoting more active fronts based on the design codes. An example of “active fronts” would be to see more cafés, pocket parks and urban amenities on the street side rather than parking lots or deep set backs.

On top of the physical incentives, the hopes of the city and the planning organizations are to provide incentive for developers as well with hardship variances and additional administrative variances. Current buildings that can’t or won’t participate in the developments can, under these regulations, do relatively simple façade or cosmetic changes to help coincide with the improvements. But not everything will be an easy fix. City Attorney, Doug Sale, when asked a question about buildings that will lose their parking lots due to these potential regulations, acknowledged the difficulty in transition by answering, “The preferred approach would be shared access to parking in back. But we’ll have to deal with it case by case.”

Still, within the group of attendees, the form-based design regulations were met with rave reviews, even subtle complaints that the city should have done this a decade ago. Even Mayor Gayle Oberst endorsed the sentiment by adding that when past opportunities to move in the direction of such regulations surfaced the council “punted,” Oberst added that these talks have been the “the kick in the pants” the city needed. “I think it’s the future of Panama City Beach,” Oberst said. “It’s not going to be easy, but we can do it. I’m excited about it and [when it’s completed] we’ll all be proud of it.”

So what should Panama City Beach residents expect? Nothing, yet, as these talks will continue to be negotiated until September. But when the time comes, Panama City Beach will have a new look. You’ll see more bike lanes, walkways, outdoor cafés, tropical landscaping, more accessible frontages and better roadways for driving. These regulations, the planners said, should also help attract new investments by increasing square footage available for office, retail or rental units in turn raising economic return on private capital.

The planning groups will begin drafting these new form-based rules, but, for now, all potential developers and those who intend on putting additional monies into renovating old properties will have to consider the likelihood that these regulations will be adopted…and that likelihood is higher than any high-rise on Panama City Beach.