Indicted Developer Seeks High-Rise Approval in Orange Beach

Monday, February 06, 2006
By RYAN DEZEMBER
Staff Reporter

ORANGE BEACH -- Developer Jim Brown, who was indicted last month on state charges that he bribed City Attorney Larry Sutley and recently resigned Orange Beach Mayor Steve Russo, continues to pursue a high-rise Gulf-front hotel in the western part of the resort city.

The project, called The Water Club and pitched by its developers as potentially the largest hotel on Baldwin County's beaches, would feature twin 32-story towers with 494 units, 18,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space and 14,000 square feet for conferences, according to plans filed with the city.

In order to build The Water Club, Brown and partner Ken Wall, whose names appear together as the applicants for a rezoning, ask that 6.75 surfside acres be reclassified from a category for single-family homes, to a planned unit development. Such developments can be approved by the city even if they don't meet certain zoning criteria but are deemed the best use of property.

The City Council has scheduled a public hearing on the matter for 4:30 p.m. Tuesday and could vote on it during its 5 p.m. meeting.

Under city rules, developers who ask for planned unit development classification must provide a public benefit and also justify their deviation from typical zoning. In The Water Club's case, the 32-story towers exceed a 26-story height limit, some side-yard setbacks are five feet too narrow and the developers seek to transfer units they would be able to build on 4.35 acres they own across the street to the beach-side hotel, according to plans filed with the city.

According to the plans, the developers would give Orange Beach the 4.35 acres which sit just east of the Alabama Gulf Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau Welcome Center and south of Gulf State Park.

In the rezoning application, the developers say that the tract, which is partially submerged year-round, is worth $6.3 million. Owners of the tract are listed as Romar Beach Acquisitions LLC, which, according to corporate filings, is registered to Brown, Bay Minette lawyer Dan Blackburn, Tennessee investor Phil Martin and Romar Villas LLC, which is a corporation shared by Wall and former Gulf Shores City Councilman Greg Kennedy.

Though each of the 494 units will have separate ownership, as condominiums do, they will be rented by the day and managed by a national hotelier, according to the plans. Most condos in Gulf Shores and Orange Beach are let on a weekly basis.

Citing data from the Convention and Visitors Bureau, the developers wrote in their application that tourists are making more and shorter trips to the beach than the traditional week-long summer stay.

"The current trend in the million-plus market are restricted rentals, or no rentals at all," the developers wrote. "The trend towards rental restrictions are contrary to the current market trends."

The Water Club would solve the problem with nightly rental rates in addition to bringing sorely needed conference space, they wrote.

On Dec. 15, the Planning Commission voted 4-2-1 to recommend that the council approve the plans, though without five affirmative votes, the tally does not officially endorse The Water Club. Commission members Robert Stuart and Joni Blalock, who is also a City Council member, voted against the plans while Jeff Moon, who is the city administrator, abstained.

According to the minutes of that meeting, which are posted on the city's Web site, four spoke against the project while one praised it.

Since then, however, prosecutors have alleged that Brown bribed Russo with cash that the longtime mayor used to buy a BMW and that he brought Russo and Sutley into a multimillion-dollar real estate venture in Gulf Shores.

Already a group has begun organized opposition to The Water Club, buying newspaper ads that urge residents to pressure council members into voting against it.

The ad, paid for by the Committee for Responsive Government, of which resident Harold Walker is listed as the chairman, refers to Brown as an "indicted developer" in its bold-type headline. "Has Jim Brown got a deal for us!" it later reads.

"Yes The Water Club will close the citizens out of the beach views," the ad continues. "They will grace you with a view of concrete and blue glass -- 31 stories of it!"

Brown and Wall could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon.

Brown, Russo and Sutley, as well as former Councilman Joe McCarron -- who is charged separately with using his old posts on the council and the Planning Commission to drum up business for his insurance firm -- are scheduled for arraignment Feb. 24 in Bay Minette before Baldwin County Circuit Judge Charles Partin, according to court records.