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Bob Sonnenblick: State of The Market Conference on April 19th in Downtown LA

RENTV Conferences Inc has chosen real estate developer Robert Sonnenblick, Chairman of Sonnenblick Development LLC, to moderate its L.A. Hotel Industry Update panel at the upcoming State of The Market Conference on April 19th in Downtown LA at 9am

UPDATE ON EVENT: Look Who’s Speaking at RENTV’s DTLA Conference – April 19th
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The event will be held at Bank of America Plaza Auditorium, 333 S. Hope Street, LA.
8am to 12 noon.
For more info contact Steve Bloom
sbloom@rentv.com
310-242-8613

Panama City: Special Report: The Marina’s Future

Click for story on www.mypanhandle.com

PANAMA CITY, Fla – The Panama City Marina has been the anchor for the downtown area since the 1950’s, but it wasn’t until 2014 that the city actually gained complete ownership of the facility from the state. That gave city officials the right to develop the marina, partnering with for-profit businesses. Some believe the right development could reverse a 40-year trend.

Bob Sonnenblick Panhandle Project: Special Report: The Marina’s Future

PANAMA CITY, Fla – The Panama City Marina has been the anchor for the downtown area since the 1950’s, but it wasn’t until 2014 that the city actually gained complete ownership of the facility from the state. That gave city officials the right to develop the marina, partnering with for-profit businesses. Some believe the right development could reverse a 40-year trend.

“How do we use the marina as a catalyst to build on to revitalize downtown? Because for the last 30 years, if you look at it, everything’s been a flight to the beach. There’s been a flight to 77, and downtown has continued to lose customers and lose business and it was time. So, when we got ownership, that gave us the ability to have public private ownerships on the property,” said Panama City Mayor Greg Brudnicki.

Last year, city commissioners hired Robert Sonnenblick, a Los Angeles developer with more than 30-years experience, and Peter Bos, a successful Destin businessman and developer, to envision the marina’s future. The new partnership, called NewCo LLC, has pitched what they call “rough” proposals.

Both Exhibit-A and Exhibit-B are similar, calling for hotel space, restaurants, entertainment or theaters, boat storage and service facilities, parking structures, apartments, and a major renovation of the marina civic center. Exhibit-B floats business names like Hilton and Marriott, Maguire’s Irish Pub, Jimmy Buffet spin-off’s Lulu’s and Landshark, and Bonefish Grill.

“It will spur people coming. If there are people coming, it will spur people to live downtown, and it will create jobs. We just want to make sure it’s done correctly and that whatever we do is beneficial to the public as a whole,” said Brudnicki.

“I’m not really keen on national themed chains,” said Panama City Commissioner John Kady.

Commissioner John Kady says he’s taking his cues from earlier public meetings, where residents told commissioners what they wanted at the marina.

“Those original guidelines – they’re very explicit. One – public access to the water, including boating and fishing, public and private entertainment venues for enjoyment, mixed retail, restaurant, office space, attractive and adequate parking facilities, civic activity space, connections to and elements of public art, an overall mix of projects that provide a substantial economic benefit to downtown, not just to this site,” said Kady.

“We asked to see restaurants on the marina. We asked to see a hotel. The civic center is, according to what we’ve talked about on our conference calls, an integral part of the deal. So, if you have people coming and staying at the hotel – going to upgraded shows at the civic center for the public – do you put a movie theater down there? There are some commissioners that say they don’t like that. I’ve talked to a lot of people that would love a movie theater downtown – that don’t want to go to Pier Park. Something for the locals,” said Brudnicki.

When commissioners cancelled Tuesday’s public meeting to hear the developer’s plans, criticized Kady decided to hold his own town hall, saying there’s not enough information available.

Brudnicki defends the decision.

“They weren’t ready. And I said, if you’re not ready, don’t come in here with some half-baked deal. We don’t want to see a piece of paper with scribbling on it. ‘We think we can do this. We know we can do this.’ We wanna see something – one – that we can eventually take to the public and say, guess what? They can deliver this. Do you want it?” said Brudnicki.

“This is being created for one purpose and that is that this will be the destination. It’s almost like they know they have a requirement to enhance the city so it’s like, ‘Oh yeah, of course this is gonna enhance the city.’ But it is intended to be a standalone,” said Kady.

“This is for, not only people that live downtown, but Bay County. This is for all over the region. But, if that doesn’t happen and we can’t do it, we’re going to exhaust all effort to make sure that we find out. Because we owe it to the public to unleash the potential of what we have downtown,” said Brudnicki.

Peter Bos stressed that anyone is yet to see his and Sonnenblick’s final marina development plan.

The public should get it’s first look on March 14th.

Click for story on www.mypanhandle.com

Sonnenblick Development Panama Downtown Starts to take place

Wednesday
Posted Dec 28, 2016 at 4:45 PM
Updated Dec 28, 2016 at 4:45 PM

Panama City officials are expecting the new marina development, which moved into the planning stage this year, to be the catalyst the area has needed to move into a new era.

By Katie Landeck | 522-5114 | @PCNHKatieL | klandeck@pcnh.com
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story ranked No. 4 in a News Herald editorial poll of 2016’s top stories. This series will continue through Jan. 1 and online at newsherald.com.

PANAMA CITY – Little by little, Panama City leaders have laid the groundwork this year for the revival of Panama City’s downtown.

Panama City officials are expecting the new marina development, which moved into the planning stage this year, to be the catalyst the area long has needed to advance into a new era.

“This (project) releases the potential of downtown,” Mayor Greg Brudnicki said in August after tentative design plans were first unveiled.

Riding the unrealized potential, nearly a half-dozen other projects were launched in 2016, ranging from the creation of apartments, to business investments, to other beautification efforts. Community leaders are hoping the domino effect of projects will build a “live, work, play” environment in the downtown, perhaps best summed up the Downtown Improvement Board (DIB) brand promise released this fall.

Their vision pledges to create “walkable community that provides urban loft living, authentic experiences and access to recreation” as well as places to work and a view of the bay.

A new look

All through the year, Panama City residents were offered a taste of what could come for the downtown as design plans trickled out.

In April, they received their first taste of the immediate future for the downtown when the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) released a video of the redesigned Harrison streetscape, with parallel parking, new landscaping, a roundabout and much wider sidewalks to accommodate outdoor shopping and dining.

While plans to start construction this year fell through, CRA Director Jared Jones said work will start next year. In the meantime, he and his staff are tweaking the designs, including looking at whether any palm trees will stay.

The biggest proposed changes, however, came in August when Sonnenblick Development released a proposal for $200 million worth of construction on the marina. The plans have since gone through several iterations as things have been deleted and added as part of an ongoing back and forth between the City Commission and developer.

The latest designs, released in late December, emphasize entertainment, fishing and cultural opportunities, and maintain the signature lighthouse first proposed. Construction is a ways away, but the plans should take a solid form in 2017.

The business side

The business side of the downtown saw a boost this year as store owners, quasi-government agencies and even the police departments started to change the culture.

For years local officials have said their needs downtown are living spaces and jobs, and those pieces finally started to fall into place. Several store owners turned the space above their business into apartments with instant success, and Jellyfish Health, a health-care technology company, moved into a larger downtown building on Oak Street – they already had a smaller presence on Harrison – with the promise to add 100 high-paying jobs in the next two years.

“These people have sort of jumped the gun to do it at a lesser cost,” Brudnicki said. “Once the marina is done and successful, the price is going to go up.”

Government spent the year working to bolster these efforts.

The police stepped up to more aggressively police vagrancy in the downtown at the request of business owners. Destination Panama City worked to market the shops – as well as the rest of the city – to outside markets, such as Atlanta, Baltimore and Nashville, Tennessee, even landing several restaurants in the pages of USA Today. The city bought the Trustmark Bank building in the heart of the downtown with promises to add foot traffic, vibrancy and more importantly parking.

And then the DIB, after a rocky summer marred by firing its executive director, resignations and a general lack of direction, the board found its footing this fall with an assist from Jennifer Vigil, CEO and president of Destination Panama City. The board found a path forward as the local marketers for the downtown, hired an event planning company to improve events, particularly a rebranded Friday Fest, and put forward a new marketing campaign renaming the downtown “Harrison.”

Yet to come

All of this planning, officials said, poises the downtown area for a strong 2017.

“We have made huge strides in getting Panama City on the map as a tourist destination,” Vigil said. “And our timing couldn’t be better as our city leaders announced an agreement this year to work with Sonnenblick Development LLC on the redevelopment of the Panama City Marina. We are laying the groundwork now to support this new multimillion-dollar investment in our community.”

The mayor put it even more simply.

“Good things are already happening,” Brudnicki said. “I anticipate more of that.”

Details of PC Marina financing plan released by Sonnenblick Development

Posted Dec 16, 2016 at 6:00 PM Updated Dec 17, 2016 at 11:50 AM
The new documents show the look of the project, dubbed MarinaVillage, has remained largely consistent with designs presented in August, emphasizing recreational activities to draw people in. Rough estimates indicate Panama City stands to make hundreds of millions from associated leases and taxes
By KATIE LANDECK
News Herald Reporter

PANAMA CITY – A clearer picture of the anticipated costs of the marina redevelopment and how the completed project might look have come into focus with the release of Sonnenblick Development’s financing proposal.
Documents received Thursday show the look of the project, dubbed MarinaVillage, has remained largely consistent with designs presented in August, emphasizing recreational activities to draw people in. And rough estimates indicate Panama City stands to make hundreds of millions from associated leases and taxes.
City officials cautioned the proposal is not a done deal, and they still are waiting on more information about the budget, timeline and other aspects of the proposal.

A tremendous amount of detail is yet to come,” City Attorney Nevin Zimmerman said Friday.
As it stands, some key changes to the design include the addition of a fishing pier, a boat sales and service area, a movie theater, a convention center and a possible apartment complex in “phase II.” A plan for dry boat storage and arcade have been deleted from the plans.

“I think it’s closer to what the commissioners want,” said City Manager Jeff Brown, who oversees the project. But, he cautioned, “this is not the end-all, be-all. This is the starting point.”

READ ORIGINAL…

Comparing the August and December marina designs

What’s the same:

The bulk of the marina still is being transformed into an outdoor play area similar to HarborVillage in Destin, with an amphitheater, outdoor marketplace, restaurants, lighthouse and water shuttle.
There still will be about the same number of places to park a boat.
Sonnenblick Development still is planning to pay to revamp the Marina Civic Center.
There still are plans to add up to two parking garages near the entrance.
The current Bay County government building still will be removed.

What’s changed:

A plan for dry boat storage has been removed. A boat service and sales area has been added in its place, as well as a potential 100-unit, nine-story apartment complex in Phase II. As part of these changes, the city attorney said there is talk of keeping the boat launch.
A plan to use the old library building for hotel facilities space and the current City Hall as an arcade has been nixed. Instead, they are proposing two hotels – first, a 150-room Marriott, and then a 150-room Hilton in Phase II – and a movie theater and convention center.
The “yacht club” has been renamed a “marina club.”
A fishing pier has been added to the southeast corner of the T-dock.