Price uptick leads to pause in Bird Key Yacht Club rebuild

Residents of Bird Key eagerly anticipate the upcoming construction of a new clubhouse at the yacht club. While leaders say they remain fully committed to moving the project forward, they decided to take a 90-day breather to address an unexpectedly high final estimate.

Days before the Bird Key Yacht Club held its annual regatta, it received a final project estimate 25% higher than anticipated, according to Bird Key Yacht Club Vice Commodore Tony Britt.

He attributed the surprise increase to the "soup of uncertainty" surrounding the financial climate at both national and international levels.

"In general, there is a great deal of economic uncertainty right now," he said.

The club is working with Tandem Construction, and Britt said members have found a good partner in the company. Up to this point, the entire project came to about $22 million to $23 million. But for a project of this scale, a 25% increase adds about $6 million to the overall price tag.

"No one saw it coming," Britt added, noting that previous quotes for the schematic design and design development stages had been on par with the club's expectations. 

He believes most of the increase can be a cushion subcontractors added to their estimates to cover potential increases in the cost of goods and other financial concerns.

Britt said club leaders, with the support of the Bird Key Homeowners Association, decided the best course of action was to pause demolition plans for 90 days, giving them an opportunity to search in-depth for places to cut costs and finalize permitting.

Project designers will appear before the Sarasota Planning Commission on May 14 and city commissioners in mid-July.

While the club considered continuing with the demolition or fully postponing the project for a year, Britt said they decided the best course of action was to keep the current clubhouse temporarily running to see if the uncertainty abates and costs come down.

Members will still take the opportunity to celebrate the clubhouse's legacy on Saturday, replacing the demolition day with a "Party On" theme.

Regardless of the challenges that arise, Britt said the club appreciates members' support of the rebuild and remains committed to getting it done, even on an amended timeline. If all goes to plan, he anticipates they will begin construction in early September.

Brian Leaver, president of the Sarasota-based construction company, said he is committed to doing everything he can to make sure the club can break ground in the fall.

"We are behind the scenes, working for them to get the project where it needs to be," he said. "We have a lot of positive energy in working toward making this happen."

He agreed with Britt that market instability is a main contributor to the increase, affecting the cost of both materials and labor.

"The uncertainty in the marketplace related to tariffs has a number of trades in our marketplace nervous, so much so that our subcontractors are telling us their prices are sometimes only good for 10 days," he said.

Leaver explained this insecurity leads tradesmen to significantly raise their prices to ensure they don't get left in a lurch, obligated to complete a job at one price when the cost of materials may rise significantly by the time they break ground.

"Our industry has seen enormous price increases over the last four to five years, since COVID occurred," he said. "We haven't seen them going down. We've started to see them leveling out a little bit."

But these latest increases have again tipped the dial.

Leaver continued, "For comparison, a project that was built six years ago is going to have a 42% increase in cost today."

Such dramatic surges are challenging to navigate, he said. But the reality is the market drives project costs, and tradesmen learned to hedge their bets after dealing with supply chain issues and project overruns during the peak of the pandemic.

Even with his experience, Leaver said it remains difficult to predict when the market may again begin to level out. But he said the club has the option of moving forward with plans to build the main clubhouse now and finalize the brass tacks later on, when ideally the market will have settled.