A LOT TO BE DESIRED: Property now belongs to Destin after six-month ordeal (PHOTOS)

It took six months longer than expected, but Destin finally has 2.12 acres to create a public parking lot in the Destin harbor district.

The city closed on the land Dec. 31, City Manager Greg Kisela told The Log, and immediately demolished the residential buildings on part of the property.

“Even if we boarded them up we couldn't keep the vagrants and homeless out of the buildings,” Kisela said. The remaining buildings are commercial property, “not easy to get into and if they do you can see the occupancy from the front windows.”

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The sale cost $3.125 million, but at Monday’s City Council meeting, Finance Director Bragg Farmer said $23,843 of the escrow money had been used to pay off code enforcement fines the city had levied on the property, at the standard rate of $250 per day.

Studies have found Destin’s harbor district has less parking than current city codes would require; several waterfront business owners have complained over the years that their property becomes overflow parking for their neighbors, inconveniencing their own customers. The City Council, which wants to see harbor tourism grow, plans to build three parking lots north of Harbor Boulevard, eventually turning them into parking garages.

The Clancy property will be the first parking lot. City Councilor and mayor-elect Sam Seevers said buying the land is a big step toward the council’s dreams of creating a “festive marketplace” on the harbor, because it’s diagonally across the street from Royal Melvin Heritage Park.

“The park is going to be the actual entranceway to the harbor,” Seevers said, and the property will eventually be connected by an overpass to the south side of the road, allowing pedestrians to park and walk to the waterfront.

Dewey Destin’s Seafood Harborside and the Destin Fishing Fleet Marina sit to either side of the park. Because Councilors Destin and Kelly Windes — the president of Destin Fishing Fleet Inc. — have a potential conflict of interest over the location of the lot they have abstained from all votes involving the Clancy property.

The council expected to buy the land at the end of June 2009, but the Clancy company’s representatives didn’t show for the closing. Different company representatives gave different reasons: The city had used the Zepponi Group to negotiate for the land without revealing its own interest; the price was too low; the person who agreed to sell wasn’t authorized to do so.

City Attorney Jerry Miller said there were other problems with the sale, such as the fact the commercial part of the property still had tenants.

In November, Miller told the council that the mortgage-holder had begun foreclosure and the company was now ready to sell. St. Andrews By The Sea Episcopal Church made an alternative offer for the city to lease its .86 acre parking lot on Mountain Drive, but the council decided to continue with the Clancy deal if Miller could resolve all remaining legal and title issues.

Councilor Jim Bagby said that property values had dropped since June, so the council should have the property reappraised before buying. Miller said that if they went for a reappraisal, the company could argue that the old contract based on the old appraisals was no longer valid.

Bagby told The Log this week that part of his job as councilor was supporting the majority decision, even when he disagreed with it.

“I’ve done this long enough to know that even though I passionately believe we overpaid for that lot, and passionately believe we overpaid the Realtor for two weeks work, I support the council position,” he said.

At the Jan. 4 meeting, Miller asked the council to sign off on the $23,843 code-enforcement payment, which they did.

Kisela told The Log that the city will demolish the remaining buildings on the property over the next few months. The contractor working on the reconstruction of Mountain Drive will use the north side of the property for their equipment and vehicles, but the city might have some surface parking on the south side before summer.