Barrier island estate is sold for near-record $15.6 million price
A 22,000-square-foot compound on a 15-acre ocean-to-river estate sold last week for a recorded price of $15.6 million, the biggest sale of the year so far on the barrier island and one of the largest ever. The actual amount of money that changed hands in the cash transaction was almost certainly a couple of million more than the recorded amount, including closing costs paid by the buyer and the value of the home’s high-end furnishings, which were part of the deal. The property was listed for $25 million by Cindy O’Dare and Clark French, broker associates at Premier Estate Properties. Alex MacWilliam Inc. real estate agent Roger Smith brought the buyer to the transaction. “The buyer is from the Northeast,” says Smith. “He wanted a beautiful oceanfront home in Florida and had been looking in Broward and Palm Beach counties. He decided to come up and take a look at what we have to offer because his financial advisor lives in Vero Beach. He was immediately very impressed with Vero compared to Palm Beach. The low density, low traffic and ambiance of the community appealed to him.” READ FULL STORY
10 homes planned on Riomar site of old St.Ed’s school
George Heaton, developer of the Vero Beach Hotel & Spa, says he has finalized plans that envisions tearing down the old St. Edward’s Lower School in Riomar and turning the property into a 10-lot subdivision. “It is very similar to the plan we developed in 2010,” Heaton says. “There will be 10 half-acre lots. Prices will range from $750,000 to $1.25 million. We expect to sell mainly to end users who will then select their own builder.” Heaton says the subdivision access road will be the old sand road already on site, which will remain unpaved. “We will move eight or 10 of the biggest live oak trees on the property to line the road and make a canopy like you see on other streets Riomar.” The 1928-vintage school on the site is not protected by any official historic designation and Heaton plans to demolish it. In a tip of the hat to school history and neighborhood tradition, he says he will salvage usable wood and stone from the demolished buildings and store it for the use of residents who want to incorporate the material into their new homes. READ FULL STORY
Reuse water rate cuts may bring reduction in homeowner fees
Barrier island communities that rely on reuse irrigation water from Vero Beach utilities to keep their lawns and golf courses green will see bills cut by almost two thirds as of Oct. 1, enabling some associations to cut homeowner fees next year. Homeowner and condo associations will not be issued new service agreements with Vero Beach Utilities, but instead will be covered under the 30-year franchise agreement recently inked with the Town of Indian River Shores. According to city officials, even reuse customers outside the Shores will benefit from the same deal – Indian River County reuse water rates. That means 67 cents per 1,000 gallons of reuse water as opposed to the $1.97 currently being charged by Vero, cutting bills by nearly two thirds. Riomar Golf Club, The Moorings and St. Edward’s School are among the large reuse customers outside the Shores that will see their irrigation bills drop after meters are read in October. “All customers will receive the same rate,” said Vero water-sewer Director Rob Bolton. “Agreements are not necessary.” READ FULL STORY
Little current role in Vero electric sale for elected officials
The sale of the Vero Beach Electric utility is for the moment effectively out of the hands of the Vero City Council, and squarely in the hands of teams of attorneys working for the city, Florida Power and Light, the Orlando Utilities Commission and the Florida Municipal Power Agency. That’s a lot of billable hours – roughly $318,000 worth so far, just in invoices from Vero’s transactional attorneys at the firm of Edwards Wildman Palmer – plus an untold amount of expensive city staff time at the highest levels. On Sept. 30, the period of exclusive negotiations with FPL will expire and that will mean a serious gut check for the Vero Beach City Council. “Everybody is really pulling together because September is the deadline for us to decide, is it a go or a no-go,” said Mayor Pilar Turner said. “I’m hoping by September we have a strategy and a posture of how to get us out of the FMPA.” READ FULL STORY
Kids to help map pollution in lagoon
The bad news is many first-born baby dolphins in the lagoon are dying from toxins built up in their mothers’ bodies while the County Commission refuses to pass a common-sense ordinance to reduce the worst source of pollution. The good news is Edie Widder and her colleagues at ORCA – the Ocean Research and Conservation Association – are gearing up to continue mapping pollution in the lagoon to make it more visible to policymakers and residents as a first step to reverse the estuary’s downward ecological spiral. The great news is that Widder and Nicole Moreaux, the marine science teacher at Indian River Charter High School, will train and deploy 20 high school students to do the bulk of the sampling and research, creating a cadre of citizen scientists knowledgeable about the plight of the lagoon to spread awareness throughout the community. The project, which is funded by a $100,000 grant from Impact 100, will get underway in July and continue for one year, mapping pollution in the area between the Barber and Wabasso Bridges. READ FULL STORY
Botched investigation leaves Carrabba’s hit-and-run suspect free
On the cold winter night when Beverly Trout Kennedy was run over in the Carrabba’s Italian Grill parking lot on U.S. 1 by a hit-and-run driver, no one knew the combination of tragedy and missed opportunity that would eventually surface. But a recently released internal affairs file, tapes from the Indian River Sheriff’s Office and 32963 interviews with witnesses and deputies give a detailed picture of the events that resulted in Kennedy’s death and the failure to apprehend the person who ran over her. Sheriff’s deputies have a prime suspect – a prominent Vero Beach professional – who when investigators finally called had the call returned by a criminal defense lawyer. But their findings in the hit-and-run that killed Kennedy came too late to link witness information to evidence. The result: The likelihood is the person who sped off in a black SUV leaving an 82-year-old grandmother lying bleeding on the pavement, leg crushed where he ran over her, will never have to answer questions. READ FULL STORY
Student appeals for rescue of lagoon fail to move County Commission
Commissioner Wesley Davis was unmoved by a group of Sebastian Middle School students that presented a research project called “Mission Possible: Lagoon Rescue” to the Board of County Commissioners last week. After the seventh-graders outlined the problem of fertilizer pollution in the Indian River Lagoon and proposed a solution that includes fertilizer regulation, Davis said he opposed board action to protect the lagoon from the runoff that the students, scientists and other political leaders say is poisoning the estuary, killing sea grass, fish and dolphins, and putting the county’s economic and aesthetic centerpiece in danger. In February, after a statewide fertilizer bill faltered in the legislature, Davis indicated he was prepared to take action. “I am trying to get ahold of Rep. Debbie Mayfield to see whether they are going to take it back up in Tallahassee,” he said. “It is definitely a pressing problem and we need to figure something out to deal with the dilemma if the state is not going to act.” READ FULL STORY
Shores bid to annex Island Club familiar ground for Mayor Cadden
When the Indian River Shores Town Council voted to begin annexation proceedings with Island Club, at least one member, Mayor Tom Cadden, said he felt like he was in familiar territory. “I lived through the last time and it ended rather abruptly – at their request,” Cadden said during last week’s meeting. The town was on the verge of annexing the Island Club a decade ago before the development pulled out of the transaction for fear of getting sucked into a multi-million dollar lawsuit with the Lost Tree Village Corporation over the Lost Tree Islands controversy. According to Florida court documents handed down last year, the town was named in litigation with Lost Tree Village Corporation, the owners and developers of John’s Island and Lost Tree Village in Palm Beach County over permits that had been denied by various government agencies for filling wetlands and developing environmentally sensitive islands just north of the Merrill Barber Bridge. READ FULL STORY
Beachland Elementary principal Carol Wilson to retire
There will be a noticeable void when the school bell rings at the start of the next school year as Carol Wilson, the principal of the island’s only public school, is set to retire after 10 years leading Beachland Elementary. Wilson said she’s thought of retiring for some time. Later this month, she turns 64. “It’s time,” Wilson said. “It’s the hardest decision I have ever had to make.” Wilson has been with the Indian River School District for 28 years. Prior to becoming a principal at Beachland, she was the principal of Fellsmere Elementary. Wilson’s last day with the district will be June 30. The last day of school for students is June. 1. READ FULL STORY
County admits more impact fee refunds due
The county’s slow-motion capitulation to Charlie Wilson over the issue of impact fee refunds continued last Friday when staff released a list of 282 more property owners due money from the county, this time from the law enforcement impact fee account. The refunds in this round are small – most between $150 and $250 – but they bring the total refund amount the county now says is due from four different funds to more than $2.6 million – a far cry from last summer when staff said no refunds were due. Community Development Director Bob Keating says the county may be on the hook for more impact fee refunds in upcoming quarters, but doesn’t think the amounts will be large. “What we are refunding now was collected at the height of boom at the end of 2005,” Keating says. “We were taking in truckloads of fees, some of which we haven’t spent because we didn’t have the money to staff new infrastructure. Collection went off a cliff when the boom collapsed, so I don’t think there will be that much more money going forward.” READ FULL STORY
Beach work continuing into start of turtle nesting season
A north-island dredging and sand spreading project that was supposed to be finished by April 30 is continuing into May, prompting concerns about interference with sea turtle nesting. “I understood the effort was to cease and the beach be returned to pristine condition as soon as the first turtle came ashore to lay her eggs,” says Vince Nelson, a volunteer in the Sebastian Inlet State Park Turtle Program. “I was very disappointed to see the heavy equipment, pipes and pumping stations continuing to work after turtles came ashore.” The Sebastian Inlet District began dredging 140,000 cubic yards of sand from a 42-acre sand trap inside the mouth of the inlet in early February. READ FULL STORY
Piper stalling on repaying taxpayers
Piper Aircraft, Indian River County’s largest private employer, shows no sign of repaying the half-million-dollars it owes the county, and county officials show no urgency about pressing the company for the cash. County Administrator Joe Baird and several commissioners say they are waiting on guidance from the state, but the state agency in charge of the matter says it has “no timeframe for a resolution and no specific reason for the delay.” The debt was incurred when the aircraft manufacturer failed to meet employment targets set in 2008 when the county and state gave Piper $10.7 million in incentives to remain in Vero and increase its payroll to 950 fulltime employees by the end of 2011. In November, in the wake of cancelling its jet program, Piper requested relief from the repayment obligation even though it was 230 employees short of the target. At that time, Commissioner Joe Flescher said he was adamantly opposed to letting Piper off the hook, and Commissioner Bob Solari later asked for three years of Piper’s audited financials to see if the company, owned by the Sultan of Brunei, one of the world’s richest men, needed relief. READ FULL STORY
