Property nets $1.6 million purchase bid
BY PAM BRANNON Gulf Breeze News news@gulfbreezenews.com

Franklin Hayes/Gulf Breeze News Gulf Breeze Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Meg Peltier stands beside the sign that marks her office's current location on U.S. 98 in Gulf Breeze.

A $1.6 million bid may purchase property that is currently occupied by the Gulf Breeze Chamber of Commerce, but the developer says the chamber may not need to move. Jim Lively of Gulf Breeze Realty is representing the high bidder for the school board property where the chamber sits right now, and he said this week that there are no plans "to throw the chamber out." The developer is hoping to work something out with the chamber to make it possible to keep them there even after the new building is complete.

Santa Rosa County School District has received four bids for its Gulf Breeze property, located at 409 Gulf Breeze Parkway. The school board will be asked to look at all bids at its Oct. 25 meeting and decide who gets to purchase the property that the chamber of commerce has been using.

The school board voted in August to sell the Gulf Breeze property due to state cutbacks for school funding. At that time board member Ed Gray III of Gulf Breeze said the school board needed to liquidate any properties around the county it was holding to make sure all revenue possible could be raised to keep the school district budget in the black.

Bids for the property were opened Oct. 9. The highest bidder, according to school district administrator Steve Ratliffe, is Tiger Point Land and Development, LLC from Winter Park, Fla. with a bid of just over $1.6 million.

Second highest bidder is BeKA Holdings, LLC of Brandon, Fla. with an offer of $1.4 million. The other three are: Moulton Properties Incorporated of Pensacola with a bid of just over $1.1 million, 1559 Development, LLC of Pensacola for $610,000, and Tiara of Pensacola, LLC of Gulf Breeze.

Meg Peltier with Gulf Breeze Chamber of Commerce said their organization was given about a six-month notice that the school board was going to try to sell the property and that the chamber might have to find a new home.

"The chamber has a search committee looking for possible places to move the office, if we need to," Peltier said. "The City of Gulf Breeze pays the school board a dollar a year as a lease fee for use of the property. The chamber had a 20-year lease with the city, and we have 13 years left on that lease. So we have been there about seven years. But everyone understands that the school board needs to sell the property because of funding cutbacks. It is kind of exciting to think of a whole new home for the chamber, whether we go into a new building still on that property or go someplace else, since next year is our 20th anniversary of the chamber."

Lively said the developer with the highest bid for the property plans to build an office complex on the site.

"We will leave the old building there while we build the new one," he said. "We have a meeting set up with the chamber this week to talk about possibilities and ways to keep the chamber there."