Newsletter 84

NEWS FROM THE SUNCOAST:

SEEKING HELP FOR LIDO BEACH

The city of Sarasota is petitioning the state to allocate more money to rebuild sections of Lido Beach that washed away during Subtropical Storm Alberto, prompting the city manager to declare a state of emergency. The Sarasota County Commission recently passed a resolution asking the state to grant more funding for Lido Beach renourishment projects, while expressing the city’s willingness to match state money to rebuild parts of the shoreline that vanish with each storm that strikes the vulnerable area. The request comes days after City manager Tom Barwin declared a state of emergency for the severely eroded beach, which lost roughly seven to eight feet of dunes and shoreline from Alberto’s brush with the state. To read more on this story, courtesy of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, please click here:  Lido Beach Emergency

2018 TOURISM SEASON STARTS STRONG

With Florida coming off a record year for tourism in 2017, newly released numbers indicate visitors continued to flock to the state during the first three months of 2018. Florida drew an estimated 33.2 million visitors from January through March, a 7.4% increase over the same period in 2017. The increase this year was buoyed by 29.1 million domestic visitors, 8.5 % more than during the first quarter of 2017. The number of Canadian visitors was up 2.5% during the quarter, though overseas visitors were down 0.7%, according to the Visit Florida website. Please click here to read more: 2018 Tourism

BULLDOZERS HEADED TO COLONY

The Town of Longboat Key issued an emergency demolition order last week for almost all of the dilapidated and vermin-infested Colony Beach & Tennis Resort. Once a world-class destination, the Colony collapsed in a legal quagmire almost a decade ago. The town is no longer waiting for unit owners to repair structures on the 17.6 acre Gulf-front property, all of which are deemed “unsafe and unfit” after several opportunities passed. There’s more on this story here: Colony To Be Bulldozed

NEW LWR SUBURB APPROVED

The developers of Lakewood Ranch received the Manatee County Commisson’s approval last week for another residential subdivision. With no discussion and no questions for the applicant, SMR Northeast LLC, the commissioners voted 6-0 in favor of Solera at Lakewood Ranch. Homebuilding firm D.R. Horton will construct the suburb of 675 single-family homes on what is now 278.4 acres of pasture at Uihlein Road, about 1.3 miles north of State Road 70 and 2.1 miles south of S.R. 64. Solera at Lakewood Ranch will retain 51% of its property, 141 acres, as open space – of which 56.6% acres will be lakes. Please follow the jump for more on this story: New LWR Suburb

FPL CREWS GIRDING GRID

The state’s largest electric utility is applying lessons learned last year from Hurricane Irma – which left much of Florida in the dark last September – in an effort to avoid mass power outages should another major storm strike this hurricane season, which began June 1. FPL’s website and application buckled amid the inundation of customers checking the status of power restoration efforts after Irma tore through Florida. The company’s website and mobile app have since been rebuilt to handle more customer traffic. The main cause of outages to 90% of FPL’s 5 million accounts representing 10 million people, were tree limbs and debris blown into power lines, FPL officials said. This season, the company is pushing an initiative called “Right Tree, Right Place”, to avoid outages. The company is also launching a pilot program to bury more neighborhood power lines, or lines in residential areas. There’s more on this story here: FPL Prepares

FLIPS DOWN, PROFITS ARE UP

Home flippers in Southwest Florida closed fewer deals but pocketed higher profits early this year. In the Sarasota-Manatee region, 5.7% of home and condo sales in the first quarter were considered flips – an arm’s length sale for the second time within 12 months – real estate researcher ATTOM Data Solutions reported. The 280 flips were down by 8% compared with the first quarter of 2017. But flippers made more money of their deals. The median gross profit of a first-quarter flip was $59,931, up by $9,331 from a year ago. The data showed the same pattern elsewhere: flips were down but profits were up in Florida and across the U.S. during the January – March period. Click here for more: Flipping Profits Up

IMPACTFUL RESEARCH ON CORALS

Sewage, runoff from mining, agriculture, pesticides and other pollutants can create conditions lethal to even the most robust corals. That’s a key finding of a study of coral in the Gulf of Aqaba, off the Red Sea, cowritten by scientists from Mote Marine Laboratory, the University of Mississippi and the Interuniversity Institute for Marine Science in Eilat, Israel. Researchers have found that the corals there are among the hardiest in the world, when it comes to surviving ocean acidification and global warming, but when pollution was added to the mix, they were more susceptible to those same stresses, according to a paper published this month in the Marine Pollution Bulletin. If you’d like to learn more, click here: Coral Health