Longboat investors appeal town's Colony demolition order

Investors Andy Adams and Sheldon and Carol Rabin have challenged a Longboat Key order to demolish the site of the former Colony Beach & Tennis Resort in a lawsuit that could delay town intentions to level the site on or after June 15. 

The lawsuit, filed Friday by the Law Offices of Lobeck and Hanson, is an attempt by the investors to receive due process in what attorney Dan Lobeck called an “unfounded declaration of emergency by the town building official.” 

Lobeck argued that the buildings at the site of the former Colony do not meet the regulatory requirements for an emergency demolition order, which provides an expedited process by which appeals may be heard. Instead of going before the Town Commission first, all appeals of the emergency order are sent to the 12th Judicial Circuit Court for decision. 

“The point we’re making is that we should be given all the due process to which were legally and constitutionally entitled,” Lobeck said. “There aren’t emergency circumstances that would deprive us of our rights.” 

The town issued an emergency demolition order for the buildings at the site of the former Colony June 1, which condemned every building on the site except for one. 

 Building Official Stan Dinwoodie wrote in the order that the buildings pose "a life safety issue to the citizens of the Town and must be demolished.”

Also on Friday, Blake Fleetwood, a Colony Beach & Tennis Resort investor who had opposed development of the former resort in court settled with the proposed developer of the property to sell his units and also removed himself from the board of the former resort's condominium association. Price was not disclosed, though Whittall in an earlier offer agreed to pay $170,000 for each condo, with higher prices offered for mid-rise building units and beachfront units.

Included in the closing was Fleetwood's agreement to drop a legal challenge to the Longboat Key Town Commission's 6-1 approval earlier this year of the Unicorp National Developments Inc. plan to develop the 17.6 acres into a St. Regis luxury hotel and condominium complex. 

Still standing in the way of Unicorp's plan: the company needs the courts to agree to a judicial termination of the former Colony condominium association. Ordinarily, a vote of 95% of the members is needed to terminate a condo association, but Adams owns enough units to block such an approval.

Also,  Whittall owns a 95% stake in 2.3 acres of Colony property that included the old restaurant, delicatessen, swimming pool and tennis courts.  Adams owns the other 5%. Of that property, Whittall wrote: "The partition sale of the remaining 5% of the Rec Land will occur the 24th of July. This will consolidate the recreational property where it will no longer have a divided ownership.''