Beaches Chamber’s Community Board Room

Panama City Beach, Florida (May, 2008) – The Greater Panama City Beaches Chamber of Commerce recently launched its new Tourist Information Center at the Beckrich Centre in Panama City Beach, where the Chamber offices have been relocated. Another new amenity is the Chamber’s new Community Board Room, available to all Bay county non-profit organizations for their meetings and gatherings.

“Our number one goal, as a non-profit membership organization, is to help our business members and other non-profits grow,” says Debi Knight, President and CEO of the Chamber. “Part of the plan has always been to provide a venue for these organizations to conduct their business.”

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My Safe Florida Home Program

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – May 14, 2008 – The My Safe Florida Home (MSFH) program will achieve its goal of 35,000 grants to homeowners by the end of this month, and the first-come, first- served program will stop accepting grant applications.

The MSFH program will transition to an inspection-focused program beginning June 2008, offering free wind inspections for eligible homeowners until it reaches the Legislature’s goal of performing 400,000 inspections or until the program sunsets in June 2009.

“With hurricane season less than one month away, I encourage Floridians to sign up for a free wind inspection to learn how to harden their homes against hurricane damage,” says Florida Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, who oversees the Department of Financial Services. “The response from homeowners has been overwhelming, and I thank the Legislature for creating this program and allowing us to enable more than 35,000 Floridians to make their homes more storm-resistant.”

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Panama City Beach TDC CVB Strategic Planning Process Outline

I was able to get my hands on the Bay County Tourist Development Council Panama City Beach CVB Strategic Planning Process Outline. It spells out where we are wanting to take Panama City Beach over the next couple of years and how we are going to get there. Following are excerpts from the document with the option to download the whole document at the end.

In January, the Bay County TDC initiated a strategic planning process to help chart the course for the Panama City Beach Convention & Visitors Bureau in coming years.

Building off of the initial work conducted, the CVB developed four key initiatives and potential funding strategy to serve as the framework for discussion as the initiatives are explored and articulated in advance of the final plan. This document includes the initiatives, as well as the notes from the retreat.

In June, a final strategic plan will be presented to the TDC for adoption.

Key Initiatives:

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5/13/08 TDC/CVB Meeting: Indian Summer Festival, College Spring Break

Only 6 of the 9 Board members were present. Absent were Mike Nelson, Rick Russell, and Gary Walsingham.

INDIAN SUMMER FESTIVAL UPDATE

President Dan Rowe reported that things have not gone as planned since the April 18th Marketing Committee meeting. To begin with, Mr. Jeffrey Wolfe of Multi-Media who was selected by the committee to operate the festival this year revoked his commitment to operate the festival with only $10,000 of the traditional $60,000 financial support from the CVB. In addition, Beach Events who I believe was not chosen by the committee mainly due to the reduced funding requested from Mr. Wolfe, now no longer is interested in promoting any fall festival for 2008. However, a group headed up by Marketing Committee member Jack Bishop is working on a proposal for the 2008 festival and expects to make a proposal and request for funding to the Board at the June meeting. Corky McCollum, from Beach Events, advised that his company was proceeding with their plans for an October 2009 festival, but did not anticipate requesting any marketing funds from the CVB. Board Member Buddy Wilkes asked Mr. Bishop whether his group was planning to operate the festival just for 2008. The response from Mr. Bishop seemed to show that his group’s interest was not limited to 2008. So we might end up with two competing Indian Summer Festivals in 2009.

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May 2008 Panama City Beach Condo Market Update from condosaletrends.com

We recently updated our Panama City Beach condo sales data through the end of April 2008. The statistics don’t look much different than earlier this year. The graph below illustrates the number of monthly re-sales from the 70 Panama City Beach condo buildings in our database. The 2008 monthly re-sales through May mirror the number of re-sales from the same period in 2007 even though there have been a substantial number of new units come on line.

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Is the housing crisis over?

The Housing Crisis Is Over

By CYRIL MOULLE-BERTEAUX
May 6, 2008; Page A
The Wall Street Journal

The dire headlines coming fast and furious in the financial and popular press suggest that the housing crisis is intensifying. Yet it is very likely that April 2008 will mark the bottom of the U.S. housing market. Yes, the housing market is bottoming right now.

How can this be? For starters, a bottom does not mean that prices are about to return to the heady days of 2005. That probably won’t happen for another 15 years. It just means that the trend is no longer getting worse, which is the critical factor.

Most people forget that the current housing bust is nearly three years old. Home sales peaked in July 2005. New home sales are down a staggering 63% from peak levels of 1.4 million. Housing starts have fallen more than 50% and, adjusted for population growth, are back to the trough levels of 1982.

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New Hooters on Panama City Beach

Wow, that was quick. It was just a couple of weeks ago they were putting the roof on this place. They couldn’t have been building this place for more than three months and it is opened.

Across the street from the navy base, Coastal Palms is the newest commercial development starting to come to life on the beach.

Burger King and Bruster’s Ice Cream opened a few months ago with La Quinta having been opened for over a year.

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House OKs Controversial Housing Plan

The House approved a federally backed bailout for the housing market; as skimpy as it may seem.  Not supported by the White House, the foreclosure prevention package was passed in a 266-154 vote.

The package will let FHA insure up to $300 billion in new loans over the next four years as long as lenders agree to reduce the mortgage principle. The lender would have to cut the amount owed to no more than 85% of the current appraised value.  If they FHA insured loans went into default, then the FHA would pay the lender the remaining principal owed.

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Agenda for Tuesday's TDC Meeting – Spring Break, PCBWhiteSale

Below is the agenda for the TDC meeting on Tuesday:

AGENDA

COMBINED BOARD MEETING
Bay County Tourist Development Council
Panama City Beach Convention & Visitors Bureau, Inc.
Panama City Beach
Tuesday, May 13, 2008 9:00 a.m. Council Room, PCB City Hall

I. CALL MEETING TO ORDER

II. ROLL CALL

A. Invocation
B. Pledge of Allegiance
C. Approve Minutes From the April 8, 2008 Meeting

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