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Among the many business bromides you hear is this one: “Nothing is sexier than buying a business.”

There was a hint of that in the Longboat Key Town Commission Chambers Monday night. You could sense a feeling of elation among the commissioners and many audience members over the real estate deal that garnered a rare 7-0 unanimous vote.

Commissioners voted to purchase for $1,508,000 Joe Wolfer’s 2.81 acres of undeveloped property next to Publix, the public tennis center and Howard Rooks’ restaurant on Bay Isles Road.

Everybody wins. Wolfer finally unloads an awkward, difficult-to-develop property. The money doesn’t come out of taxpayers’ property taxes; it comes from the town’s land-acquisition, extortion fund. That’s the fund that requires developers of large projects to pay ransom to the town as part of their permitting and development rights. The money in the fund can be used only for town land purchases and park improvements.

And, this was the biggest win: The proponents of the much-talked-about Longboat Key town center saw the acquisition of these 2.81 acres essential to that effort. One after another urged the commissioners to do the deal:

Walter Hackett and Jared Whitehead, members of the town’s Urban Land Institute Implementation Advisory Committee; George Spoll, chair of the Revitalization Task Force; Tom Aposporos, speaking on behalf of the board of the Longboat Key Foundation; and Cheryl Loeffler, Longboat resident and incoming chair of the Ringling College of Art and Design.

(Loeffler carefully worded her remarks, indicating the college’s interest in exploring a public-private partnership for a cultural-center component to the town center, a sign that Ringling is open to options for the Longboat Key Center for the Arts.)

About the only naysayer to the deal was former Commissioner Gene Jaleski, who urged the town instead to buy the old service-station at the corner of Gulf of Mexico Drive and Broadway before buying Wolfer’s property. That went nowhere.

None of the commissioners had a critical thing to say about the idea. And in a matter of minutes, they unanimously approved a proposed contract to buy the property — a rare show of togetherness.

Mayor Jim Brown was so pleased over the deal and what it means for a future town center, he commented: “I’ve been involved in this town almost since I came here 14 years ago. I haven’t seen any momentum like this since I’ve been here.”

The deal maker behind the deal was Town Manager David Bullock. He told the commission he has been in discussions with Wolfer for more than two years. He told commissioners Wolfer had another buyer for the property (oldest trick in the buyout book) and that now that discussions have resurfaced again in earnest about a town center, “securing the site is a logical step.”

It is a logical step.

While we typically cringe at government bodies expanding their real estate holdings, one appealing aspect to this transaction is if a bonafide town-center developer emerges, the town can sell the land. The town is not required to hold it in perpetuity.

But now what?

With this acquisition, the town has jumped into the development pond and is at least $1.5 million deep into creating a town center.

Sure, the town can sit on the Wolfer land and do nothing. It could move the four public tennis courts next to All Angels by the Sea onto the Wolfer property, opening the tennis-courts property next to the Longboat Library for redevelopment.

Or it can follow through on the momentum of which Mayor Brown spoke Monday night to bring a town center to fruition.

If it’s the latter — and this appears to be the highest priority on the Town Commission agenda — the Town Commission must make the commitment to be “all in.” And that means, if this multi-year project is to succeed, the commission cannot expect the town manager to be the town-center project manager.
Bullock should be credited for pulling together and making the Wolfer deal happen. But creating a town center is far, far greater and complicated than negotiating the purchase of 2.81 acres.

It will take a pro. It will take a bonafide commercial developer on the scale of a Benderson Development, Casto, the Sembler Co. or others with successful track records.

But even before that developer arrives on the scene, the town will need a pro to pull together all of the pieces and players; a pro who can make sure the zoning allowances are in place; to research and recruit the right developer; and then help pave the way for that developer to move forward without much bureaucratic resistence.

That also means the town would need this pro to talk with all of the other connected property owners — restaurant owner Howard Rooks, Publix Super Markets Inc., the U.S. Postal Service and owners of the SunTrust, Bank of America and Premier Sotheby’s office buildings. Whoever ultimately develops a town center won’t want to spend the time and money scratching his way through a process full of contentious negotiations.

The town will need a first-rate professional who has done all of this before.

As noted at Monday night’s Town Commission meeting, bringing a town center to fruition likely will take at least three years — that is, if everything can occur without lawsuits and protracted town hearings.

And this should be kept in mind as well: The Grand Plan Graveyard is full of towns and cities whose town commissioners and city council members thought they could be developers. In Florida, we know of two prominent cities that languished for at least a decade because of their city commissions’ delusional thinking that government could redevelop their urban cores — Miami Beach and St. Petersburg.

Both failed miserably. Not until the private sector arrived did they experience success — extraordinary success at that.

Next step: Bring on the pro.

+ Don’t take the federal money
Longboat Key Town Manager David Bullock two weeks ago made a convincing case to town commissioners.

He met early in February with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to explore whether and how the town could qualify for federal funds to help pay for beach maintenance.

It’s possible. But as is always the case when you take federal money, there are distasteful trade-offs.
As it is, Longboat Key taxpayers since the early 1990s have funded the town’s beach maintenance with their own money — no subsidies from the state or federal governments, except in a few instances of hurricane damage.

The advantages to this are: Longboat can obtain necessary permits in, say, at least half the time (1.5 years versus three years); and the town has no restrictions on the types of sand it wants to use.

With the Corps, you take what sand you get. What’s more, the Corps has greater requirements on increased beach accesses, a criterion that would not sit well with Longboat taxpayers.

As Adam found out in Paradise, it’s tempting to bite the apple. The feds would pay 50% of the Key’s maintenance costs. But once you bite the federal apple, you find out how it can be rotten to the core.
Don’t take the federal money.

HISTORIC MOMENT
Times have changed, that’s for sure.

When Joel Friedman, a Sarasota-based planner representing the new Aria condo development on Longboat Key, addressed the Longboat Key Town Commission Monday, he made a public statement that could be a historic first from a developer:

Referring to the town’s planning staff, Friedman said: “It was a pleasure working with them.”

Let that be forever recorded: March 3, 2014.