Received a helpful head's up yesterday from a well-informed and plugged-in reader in next-door Hollywood about a timely update on the Margaritaville Hollywood Beach Resort; with a community meeting/Q&A scheduled for Thursday at 6 pm at Hollywood City Hall regarding the various changes to the project's lease and related documents.
This morning I officially received the news from the City of Hollywood, below:
What are Starwood Capital and Lon Tabatchnick/Lojeta up to now?
Hmm-m...
Seven weeks ago, thanks to The Balance Sheet Blog, the conscientious “eyes and ears” of Hollywood, we knew the following: http://balancesheetblog.wordpress.com/2013/04/01/margaritaville-2/
I attended that semi-contentious meeting at Hollywood City Hall (and recorded it) and I think it's fair to say that even among the Margaritaville supporters in the chambers and within the general public as a whole, there is definitely growing resistance to letting this little melodrama play itself out much longer, as was made clear by the not-so-sanguine comments of Comm. Peter Hernandez towards the end of the meeting.
This was not at all helped by what in my opinion appeared to be the general evasiveness of some of the Starwood Capital team members present in their responses, as they seemed more tight-lipped than you would think they'd be at a public meeting involving something that the Hollywood community is so emotionally and financially invested in -and for good reason, too.
That's especially true given the history of this project and the fact that Starwood Capital and their new pal Lon Tabatchnick were asking for something from Hollywood's elected representatives, NOT giving them something to make the medicine go down faster.
Some of the Starwood Capital folks almost seemed genuinely upset that the City Commission wanted more specific answers from them than they were prepared to give, but then I saw this phenomena all the time on Capitol Hill, too, where well-prepped people hit a wall after a while, and became increasingly disconnected to the larger picture.
Specifically, that happened more frequently than you'd imagine it would at Congressional hearings I attended in the 1990's held by what was then called the House Telecomm. & Finance Subcommittee, under then-Chair John Dingell involving the U.S. financial services industry, some of which were both highly-publicized and highly-controversial.
As of today, I don't know with certainty who'll be speaking on Thursday -besides, likely, Hollywood City Manager Cathy Swanson-Rivenbark, whom as regular readers of the blog know, I'm a big fan of- but I genuinely hope that we hear the answers directly from Starwood and not from Lon Tabatchnick's attorney, or from a hired-gun PR whiz.
Guess we'll all find out soon enough...
The community meeting is NOT being called "As The World Turns," but you can be excused for thinking that it ought to be after all this time, with yours truly at 99% of those public meetings from the beginning.
The Community Meeting will be followed on Wednesday, May 29th at 5:00 p.m. with a Joint Special City Commission/CRA meeting. This meeting will also be held at Hollywood City Hall (Room 219). City and CRA Staff will present the proposed changes to the City Commission. Representatives from Margaritaville Hollywood Beach Resort, LLC, including Starwood Capital, will also be in attendance.
------
Later...
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Developer tweaks Margaritaville contract with Hollywood
By Susannah Bryan, Sun Sentinel
5:38 p.m. EDT, May 21, 2013
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/hollywood/fl-margaritaville-hollywood-update-20130521,0,2186680.story
This morning I officially received the news from the City of Hollywood, below:
What are Starwood Capital and Lon Tabatchnick/Lojeta up to now?
Hmm-m...
Seven weeks ago, thanks to The Balance Sheet Blog, the conscientious “eyes and ears” of Hollywood, we knew the following: http://balancesheetblog.wordpress.com/2013/04/01/margaritaville-2/
I attended that semi-contentious meeting at Hollywood City Hall (and recorded it) and I think it's fair to say that even among the Margaritaville supporters in the chambers and within the general public as a whole, there is definitely growing resistance to letting this little melodrama play itself out much longer, as was made clear by the not-so-sanguine comments of Comm. Peter Hernandez towards the end of the meeting.
This was not at all helped by what in my opinion appeared to be the general evasiveness of some of the Starwood Capital team members present in their responses, as they seemed more tight-lipped than you would think they'd be at a public meeting involving something that the Hollywood community is so emotionally and financially invested in -and for good reason, too.
That's especially true given the history of this project and the fact that Starwood Capital and their new pal Lon Tabatchnick were asking for something from Hollywood's elected representatives, NOT giving them something to make the medicine go down faster.
Some of the Starwood Capital folks almost seemed genuinely upset that the City Commission wanted more specific answers from them than they were prepared to give, but then I saw this phenomena all the time on Capitol Hill, too, where well-prepped people hit a wall after a while, and became increasingly disconnected to the larger picture.
Specifically, that happened more frequently than you'd imagine it would at Congressional hearings I attended in the 1990's held by what was then called the House Telecomm. & Finance Subcommittee, under then-Chair John Dingell involving the U.S. financial services industry, some of which were both highly-publicized and highly-controversial.
As of today, I don't know with certainty who'll be speaking on Thursday -besides, likely, Hollywood City Manager Cathy Swanson-Rivenbark, whom as regular readers of the blog know, I'm a big fan of- but I genuinely hope that we hear the answers directly from Starwood and not from Lon Tabatchnick's attorney, or from a hired-gun PR whiz.
Guess we'll all find out soon enough...
The community meeting is NOT being called "As The World Turns," but you can be excused for thinking that it ought to be after all this time, with yours truly at 99% of those public meetings from the beginning.
 |
The City of Hollywood will be holding a Community Meeting to review the proposed changes to the Margaritaville Hollywood Beach Resort Lease and related documents along with a question and answer period on Thursday, May 23rd at 6:00 p.m. at Hollywood City Hall (Room 219).
The Margaritaville Hollywood Beach Resort is proposed for construction on an approximately 5 acre parcel of city-owned land between Johnson Street and Michigan Street on Hollywood Beach.
For questions, please contact the Office of the City Manager at 954.921.3201.
Later...
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Developer tweaks Margaritaville contract with Hollywood
By Susannah Bryan, Sun Sentinel
5:38 p.m. EDT, May 21, 2013
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/hollywood/fl-margaritaville-hollywood-update-20130521,0,2186680.story
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