This Week in Pier Park – First Retail Sign and Paved Street

Sometime in the last week they paved the road down the main Boardwalk of Pier Park in Panama City Beach. I was there last Tuesday and was told by a friend that it was paved when he walked it on Christmas. It never ceases to amaze me how quick some things happen.

Quiznos Sub is the first to have their retail sign up. They will open with the rest of The Boardwalk in February. Windows have been going in and will continue to be installed through next week. Enjoy the pictures below. Click on them to make them larger.

Click here for all posts on Pier Park.

Pier Park Pictures – 75 retailers announced

With over 75 retailers announced and more to be announced in the near future, the progress at Pier Park is smoking. I’ve been onsite taking pictures every one to two weeks and I still seem to be getting passed up. I can’t keep up with how quick they are working.

The official Grand Opening for The Boardwalk is on schedule for February 15th, 2008 and will include anchors Margarittaville, Ron Jon Surf Shop, Borders Books and Music, Dillard’s, Fresh Market, JCPenney, and Old Navy. Panera Bread, Target and The Grand Movie Theater are already opened. For those of you who are locals and have not eaten at Panera Bread, I highly recommend it. My wife and I frequent it often and love it.

One of the things that I love about Pier Park is that it isn’t just another shopping mall. The architectural detail and the strategic layout of the entire project is goaled at making you feel good about being there. Paul Adjaharian, Vice President for Simon Property Group, says that it is the goal of Pier Park to make you feel good when you are there, the buying will take care of itself. Pier Park will be a place for people to gather and spend time with one another and family. I know my wife and I will be spending plenty of time there.

One place I can’t wait to spend money at is Margaritaville. I’m looking forward to eating on the second floor terrace watching the sunset over the Gulf of Mexico. The City Pier sunsets are awesome.

Click here for an entire list of announced tenants and a basic map as to where they will be located.

Click here for all the information I have on Pier Park.

Also, below are some pictures that I took on Tuesday.

I’m currently working on the story board for my next Pier Park movie. I’m hoping to start shooting that this week and have the video done by the first or second week in January.

5 Year Home Price Projections – Positive or Negative?

This month in Fortune Magazine there was a great article speaking into the current condition of the real estate market, what happened to start the boom, what happened as the boom became less boomy, and how it is affecting people now.

In a previous post I talked about how in the beginning when money was easy to get and real estate was cheap, there was way more demand for the supply; this started the boom (or more, frenzy). As people saw their friends and neighbors selling property for more and quicker AND after bidding wars, the frenzy grew. “Buy now, buy everything, double the price and sell tomorrow!” Well, everyone I knew in the “biz” agreed that that couldn’t last forever, but had no idea when it would settle down. Just when you thought an unbeatable record was set, it was broken as well.

Fast foward to today. Taxes and insurance is up, interest rates are up from a couple of years ago and the subprime mortgage market has just recently gone through a meltdown. Real estate is not as easy to purchase as it once was, so the demand is down. Develpers couldn’t slow their building train down quick enough so new home inventories are way up. Property owners have mortgages payments they can’t afford because they bought a little too much home with low teaser rates and high hopes that the future appreciation would bring profits to make the risk worth taking.

Fortune Magazine’s Shawn Tully couldn’t have picked a better time for this story. He discusses that through calaboration with Moody’s Economy.com they were able to project the 5 year outcome of our current real estate market conditions based on history of average annual rent increases, annual property value increases and their correlation with each other.

He explains that there has always been a direct correlation between property values and the average rental rate for similar properties. This makes sense, right? Why would you purchase a home when it costs substantially less to rent? The prospect of future appreciation is not reasonable right now. Sure it is nice to own your own home. If you want to move a tree in the front yard, or if you want to update the inside, you don’t have to ask permission. But is it ‘pay twice as much a month’ worth it?

According to their findings, they estimate an average fall in prices nationwide over the next 5 years to be around 28%. Of course, not all markets will see a decrease. Areas like Dallas and Houston (1.3%), Detroit (6.9%), Indianapolis (7.3%) and Cleveland (9.6%) never really got a taste of the boom, nor experienced radical price valuation increases and thus have positive projections. However, cities such as Orlando (-34.2%), Miami (-32.2%), Sacramento (-26.1%), and Las Vegas (-26.3%) experienced such rapid value growth that the 5 year adjustment is negative.

Projections are based on a 15 year history of the property value/rent correlation. For us to get back to reality with regards to the real estate market on a national scale, the gap between property values and market rent rates needs to close.

The entire article: click here.

As you’ve heard me say in the past, real estate is very local and regional in nature. In Panama City Beach, I’ve always thought we were a little ahead of the national market with regards to market conditions. I feel that prices were shooting up here before many of the larger markets, and the correction began sooner here then it did in many of the local markets. Don’t get me wrong, I still think we are going through a correction period, but we’ve come a long way. Not to mention all the future economic development that is slated for our area over the next five years. The Airport relocation can do mounds for our area in putting us on the map and seeding growth and opportunity. It will open this market up to many who just couldn’t rationalize spending the money and going through the effort it takes to get here.

The airport will be great and our area will be awesome in 5 years. The CRA will be done, Pier Park will be very well established and we should have planes coming in from all over the country and hopefully a few big corporations’ headquarters here.

TDC Meeting Notes – Possible Bed Tax Increase

Notes from the TDC Bed Tax Committee Meeting on Wednesday 12/5/2007.

4 of the 7 committee members were present. Absent were Mike Nelson, Andy Phillips, and Russ Smith.

State of Panama City Beach: President Dan Rowe made a short presentation on the state of our tourism industry. This included the changing destination, the airport relocation, the changing customer base and other challenges facing the industry. He believes that both new and existing resources must be used to both retain and enhance occupancy and rate integrity during this dynamic time.

Tie-In between the Bed Tax Discussion and the Strategic Plan Framework: President Rowe discussed the Strategic Plan Retreat that is scheduled for January. The plan is designed to answer: 1. Where we want to go as a destination in the next 3-5 years? and 2. How do we get there?. Rowe suggested that the committee defer further discussion about a possible bed tax increase until the strategic plan was complete. He suggested that the committee instead concentrate on bed tax compliance and reporting in the near term. Rowe suggested that the board encourage the accommodations industry to work with Smith Travel Research so that more accurate rate and occupancy data would be available. He explained that Smith protects the confidentiality of all reported data and would only report composite data. The committee also discussed the problems with the current rate and occupancy data being compiled by the HAAS Center due to the small number of participating parties. The President advised that Smith could make a presentation to the industry about their services to help alleviate concerns about providing proprietary occupancy and rate data.

2005 Bed Tax Collectors Survey: Rowe suggested that the committee delay distributing the 2005 Bed Tax Collectors Survey at least until after the Strategic Plan Framework is complete. No objections were voiced to Rowe’s suggestion.

Meeting notes are courtesy of Bryan J. Durta. Thanks Bryan.