TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Will It Be Make Nice, Or Meltdown?

ADVERTISEMENT

By TOM JACKSON

Published: March 12, 2009

Ken McGurn is coming to town Tuesday, and he's hoping to avoid his worst-case scenario: becoming the human version of the China Syndrome. It could happen.

McGurn is the developer, recruited some years back by Peter Altman in his role as New Port Richey's constant cheerleader, who plowed $7 million into what was once regarded as the future crown jewel in the city's downtown treasure chest: a gleaming, Tuscan-style complex where retailers, residents and visitors would mingle in urban harmony.

Then came a confluence of events McGurn would describe as "the perfect storm" of hostilities: the hurricanes of 2004-2005, soaring costs and materials shortages accompanying the construction bubble and up-creeping interest rates.

Late in 2005, McGurn declared a shutdown, pending more favorable conditions. Ever since, the nascent stage of Main Street Landing has crouched, naked but for its surrounding chain-link fence, on the west bank of the Pithlachascotee River, a bare-block monument to a go-go age.

A Way Forward

Even as the project sat idle, McGurn paid for site maintenance, keeping things tidy in anticipation of … well, what, exactly, nobody quite knows.

Helping disperse the fog is much of what will lure McGurn from his home in Gainesville. Providing he manages his temper — "I served in Vietnam; I don't want to do any more fighting," he says, "but I was in the military seven years; I won't just roll over" — McGurn plans to lay out a trio of scenarios almost anyone would regard as reasonable.

First, however, he will demand, correctly, to know just where the city gets off claiming that the project has been abandoned — and, as if simply to stick a thumb in his eye, to threaten a lawsuit.

Among McGurn's revised plans is to complete to the shell stage (electrical, HVAC, telephone, plumbing, data, fire prevention, doors, windows, roof) what already is in place. Set signs: Leasing available. And, with the city as a partner — this is scarcely unusual — extend incentives.

See The Possibilities

To make this plan presentable, McGurn hired a new architect and a structural engineer, paid for a survey and an independent materials audit, and maintained regular contact with city staff throughout the fall. McGurn's e-mail indicates at least one interchange every 4.25 business days from Labor Day until Nov. 30.

In mid-October, only days after McGurn had visited for a debriefing, City Manager Tom O'Neil told the developer city councilors would be happy with quarterly updates. Then, weirdness: As McGurn prepared to return on O'Neil's schedule, O'Neil recommended filing suit against him.

This plainly outrageous, unprovoked injection of antagonism not only risked happy resolution, it likely was wrongheaded to boot. The city's attorney says the project is legally abandoned, but abandonment requires intent to relinquish; that condition evaporates with the court's receipt of McGurn's e-mail trail.

It's not too late to play nice, not too late to set the stage to put downtown New Port Richey at the forefront of recovery when recovery finally arrives. The city needs to embrace the idea that Ken McGurn is its partner, not its adversary, and what they may create together can yet be beautiful.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT