Longboat Observer 12.15.11

Page 1

bserver O Happy Hanukkah!

LONGBOAT

You. Your neighbors. Your neighborhood.

NEIGHBORHOOD

DIVERSIONS

Longboat homes and businesses are ablaze with holiday spirit. PAGES 19A-20A

OUR TOWN

Courtesy photos

+ Journey to health

vision plan

Thursday, DECEMBER 15, 2011

Gyotaku artist Linda Heath reels in her work. INSIDE

NEWS

P&Z Board OKs Publix’s plans with modifications. PAGE 3A

by Robin Hartill | City Editor

Colony developers not waiting for settlement Club Holdings and the association board are intent on building mostly new units — even without Klauber’s three acres.

Johnny Vasco de Gama, the endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtle, underwent rehabilitation after being stranded in the Netherlands — thousands of miles away from home. He was rescued in November 2008. On Tuesday, Nov. 29, Mote Marine Laboratory received him, gave him a brief physical exam and moved him to a medical pool. He was under the weather, and after two-and-a-half years, he soon will be under the water.

Rachel S. O’Hara

+ Bill Bowe makes a soaring eagle Bill Bowe and his wife, Debbie, were golfing recently at Longboat Key Club Harbourside Golf Course, and on the last hole, Red No. 9, Bill hit his stride. He chipped his second shot of 143 yards for an eagle.

+ Robert Frost nips at your nose Jack Frost won’t be in attendance, but Robert Frost poems will be at Anna Maria Island Concert Chorus and Orchestra’s concert Sunday, Dec. 18. The night will feature Longboat Key, Lido Key, St. Armands Key Chamber of Commerce President Tom Aposporos as its narrator for “A Classical Holiday” at 2 p.m. Sunday, at CrossPointe Fellowship, 8605 Gulf Drive, Holmes Beach.

Chris Tivey, founder and senior vice president of the Tour Club; Ben Addoms, founder and chief marketing officer of Club Holdings LLC; Jay Yablon, Colony Beach & Tennis Resort Association Board president; Glenn Miller, president of Miller Group Development; Stacy Miller, president of LaunchPad Development; and Scott Anderson, founder of Dream Catcher Retreats Two years and $84 million. Legal battles, zoning issues and infighting aside, that is what it will take before guests and unit owners can check in at a redeveloped Colony Beach & Tennis Resort. So says Glenn Miller, one of the principals of Club Holdings Ventures LLC, the entity chosen by the Colony Association board to rejuvenate the shuttered Longboat Key icon. Ben Addoms, founder and chief marketing officer of the Broomfield, Colo.,-based Club Holdings LLC, doesn’t seem deterred by all of the obstacles. In his more than 20-year career, Addoms says, nothing worthwhile has come about on the first try. Nor is Scott Anderson, also of Club Holdings, deterred. He points out all that is good about the Colony is often lost in discussions of the negativity: the history, the culture and, of course, the location. “You just can’t replace 18 acres

WHO’S WHO OF CLUB HOLDINGS VENTURES LLC? / PAGE 2A on the beach,” Anderson said. Miller, Addoms and Anderson were among five representatives of Club Holdings who discussed the company’s plans and vision for a new Colony Monday during a 90-minute session in the library at the Longboat Key Club’s Inn on the Beach. Monday marked the start of a series of meetings this week Club Holdings and the Colony Association board arranged with Longboat Key town commissioners individually, members of the Longboat Key Revitalization Committee and Colony unit owners to preview Club Holdings’ vision for a new Colony. Jay Yablon, president of the Colony Association, made the groups’ intentions clear, repeating the theme: “We’re going to move for-

ward with the 15 acres we have,” he said. “Having urban blight on Longboat Key is simply not an option.” Last year, Club Holdings, parent company of three vacation networks, partnered with Miller, president of Miller Development Group and an original Colony owner, along with his daughter, Stacy Miller, president of LaunchPad Development Inc., to form Club Holdings Ventures LLC to develop a plan to restore the Colony. In September, the Colony Association board voted unanimously to recommend Club Holdings as the firm to redevelop and operate the resort. On Monday, when they described their vision, they used a familiar term — “casual elegance” — a description that longtime Colony owner Dr. Murray “Murf” Klauber has often invoked.

SEE COLONY / PAGE 2A

CRUCIAL THREE ACRES by Matt Walsh | Editor

Klauber says developers need his approval Colony Beach & Tennis Resort owner Dr. Murray “Murf” Klauber appeared pleased and laughed in delight Tuesday morning when he heard that representatives of Club Holdings Ve n t u re s LLC wanted to create the ambience of “casual elegance” at a newly redeveloped Klauber Colony. “Those are my words,” he said, smiling. But that was the only thing that pleased Klauber. Told that the Colony Association (unit owners) and Club Holdings Ventures representatives are talking of redeveloping the Colony even if they don’t get control of Klauber’s three acres of the resort property, Klauber said: “They can’t move forward.” Then he showed a copy of a letter he sent Monday to Longboat Key Town Manager David Bullock. It stated Klauber doesn’t consent to a redevelopment as proposed by the Colony Association (the unit owners) and that, according to town codes, the association could not proceed with a redevelopment without Klauber’s signature or an affidavit acknowledging his consent. Klauber’s letter also specifies 14 individual pieces of property Klauber or one of his companies owns within the Colony’s confines. Among them are three acres of land crucial to any redeveloped Colony — including the tennis courts, swimming pool, the Colony Restaurant and portions of the mid-rise hotel building. One of Klauber’s specific objections to a tentative as-

SEE KLAUBER / PAGE 8A

INDEX Briefs....................4A Calendar............ 10A

Classifieds ........ 29A Cops Corner....... 10A

Crossword.......... 28A Opinion.................6A

Real Estate........ 22A Weather............. 28A

Vol. 34, No. 20 | Two sections YourObserver.com


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