Last October, the city bought 4.6 acres of vacant land to the west for $18 million<\/a> and owns the property to the east, which includes a marina and public works facility.<\/p>\nMayor Anne-Marie Brooks said it\u2019s an exciting opportunity for the city to own a continuous piece of property and reimagine the entrance to the city. Many residents support the purchase, according to Mayor Brooks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was our residents who stood up and said, \u2018Hey, can you buy that property so that we can own it all?\u2019,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is a fish house\u2026 where fishing boats go. It\u2019ll give the city the opportunity to have a full 10 acres to develop.\u201d<\/p>\n
The commission approved the sale contract on a 4-1 vote, with Commissioner Housh Ghovaee voting against it. Ghovaee said he supports parts of the purchase but believes the price is too high.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my mind, it doesn\u2019t bring as much benefit as we think. So that\u2019s why I voted against it,\u201d Ghovaee said. \u201cI feel that the $3.5 million that we\u2019re spending is too much.\u201d<\/p>\n
The city manager must get two appraisals and an environmental study completed before bringing the sale back to the commission for a final vote in 60 days. Ghovaee said he would support the sale if the price were lower.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn most aspects, I\u2019m okay with the purchase,\u201d he said. \u201cExcept that I think we\u2019re probably spending $1 million too much.\u201d<\/p>\n
The city manager said that without the land purchase, Madeira Beach would not be able to have boat slips on all three sides of the larger vacant property.<\/p>\n
Brooks said she did independent research and believes the price is worth it.<\/p>\n
\u201cPrior to doing an official appraisal, we did look at, independently I did, at what the value of the property would come in at,\u201d Brooks said. \u201cSo I think that the city\u2019s value for the property is great.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brooks said that if the due diligence process does not show any major problems, she expects the commission to approve the purchase.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MADEIRA BEACH, Fla. \u2014 The Madeira Beach Commission voted Thursday to move forward with a $3.5 million purchase…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[2968,115,596,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,835],"class_list":["post-377912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-josh-rojas","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}