- April 19, 2024
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An Orlando-based development company has offered more than $40 million to buy all the units at the former Colony Beach & Tennis Resort by the end of the week, a proposal the developer hopes will expedite its plans to redevelop the property.
Unicorp National Developments’ President Chuck Whittall made the offer March 27, proposing to purchase more than 200 units for more than $170,000 each, including premiums of $100,000 for midrise condominiums and $200,000 for beachfront units.
This offer only applies, however, if all unit owners agree to the deal.
That includes Blake Fleetwood, who owns three units and has said he won’t sell his beachfront units that he contends are habitable, and Andy Adams, who owns more than 60 units and has refused to sell for anything less than $25 million, Whittall said.
None of the 237 units at the site of the former Colony Beach & Tennis Resort was assessed in 2015 at more than $198,000, according to records from the Colony Beach & Tennis Club Association, the property’s condominium organization.
“Really it’s not about money, it’s about keeping cottages,” Fleetwood said. “That’s really my main focus and Andy’s main focus, too.”
Adams did not return calls for comment.
“Every day that goes by with Andy Adams continuing to hold out for an obscenely disproportionate benefit is one day more that all the other owners will wait to get paid full price, one more day they are accruing assessments, and if their interest is not in the money but in getting back to the Colony property, one less day that they will be able to do so,” association president Jay Yablon wrote in a March 28 email to owners.
This proposal is an effort by the developer to avoid litigation that could delay the town-approved project to build a five-star resort on Longboat Key for years.
“I think the odds are 2%,” Whittall said of his offer being accepted. “I think there’s no way to get Andy [Adams] and Blake [Fleetwood] to come together, they’re too greedy.”
Whittall said this offer is his way of showing the owners, and the town, that he is not the reason for any delay in construction, which the developer wants to begin this year.
If his offer were accepted by Friday, Whittall said he could begin demolition of the buildings at the former Colony Beach & Tennis Resort the following week and start building a St. Regis Hotel and Residences at the site before 2019.
And if all the owners do not accept the offer, Whittall has a fallback. It’s his lawsuit against the Colony Beach & Tennis Club Association to terminate the association.
That lawsuit contends that the property is in a state of disrepair, that it “creates vast economic waste” for the town and that the Colony Beach & Tennis Club Association, along with many of its owners, want to terminate the association.
But 30% of the owners, “comprised of, in large-part, by a single owner of multiple units, Colony Beach Investors LLC,” do not want the association terminated, according to the lawsuit.
Adams is the member manager of Colony Beach Investors.
This type of case, where a unit owner seeks to terminate a condominium association through the courts rather than by a vote of the owners, is uncommon in Florida, according to Colony Beach & Tennis Club Association attorney Jeff Warren.
If the case is ruled in favor of Unicorp Colony Units, the development firm seeks court approval to destroy and rebuild new structures on the property as a means of curing the “life-safety issues plaguing the Condo hotel,” according to the lawsuit.
Unicorp Colony Units paid to serve court summons to at least 18 of the more than 200 defendants in its case against unit owners to terminate the condominium association.
Fleetwood, Adams and Colony Beach Investors LLC are all included in those service orders.
“My attorneys tell me we will resolve this in about 12 months,” Whittall wrote in an email sent March 29 to stakeholders. “The hold outs (sic) will receive surprises in the next few days.”
