Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Monroe County is expected to pursue a $7.5 million state grant that could take waterfront property on Stock Island off the market, and help preserve commercial fishing in the Florida Keys.

County budget staff is asking the County Commission to apply for the Stan Mayfield Working Waterfronts Fund, which uses Florida Forever grant money to buy waterfront property for preserving commercial fishing and the harvest of saltwater products. The request will go before the commission Nov. 19.

The grant would cover much of the purchase price of the former site -- it is now scarified -- of Gulf Seafood Co. The county could choose to recoup the remainder of the purchase price by leasing space to fishermen for dockage and trap storage.

"It's a long shot," said Doug Gregory, director and marine agent at the Monroe County Extension Services. "It would be a good thing. It's good for the industry."

Long shot may be an understatement -- the county would be requesting the state's entire annual allotment for the program next year.

The competitive grant program was created by the late state Rep. Stan Mayfield, R-Vero Beach, and approved by the state Legislature earlier this year. The state Department of Community Affairs is the program facilitator and will bring proposals before the Florida Communities Land Trust Board. That board, which includes appointed members and the secretaries of Community Affairs and Environmental Protection departments, ultimately will decide how to allocate the money.

County officials believe the purchase of the Gulf Seafood property would help ensure a future for the commercial fishing industry in the Florida Keys, which is losing dock space, trap storage and fish houses to waterfront redevelopment. Currently no commercial fishermen or fishing trade organizations now own substantial parcels of waterfront property.

Lisa Tennyson, a county budget analyst working on the grant project, said it would give commercial fishermen a "long-term sense of security."

"It would be a large critical piece of commercial waterfront that would stay in the public domain forever," Tennyson said. "It has the potential to save commercial fishing."

Commercial lobster landings in the Keys generate nearly $30 million annually, and stone crab fishing brings in a little less than $24 million a year. Commercial fishing, overall, is a $60 million to $80 million per year industry in the Keys.

If the county obtains the entire $7.5 million grant, it still would have to come up with several million dollars more to purchase the property.

County staff hopes a slowed real estate market might allow the county to buy the property, purchased in 2005 for $10 million, at a reduced cost.

The owner, WSG Sand Lake, is "willing to sell and work with the county" and will consider accepting $11 to $12 million, with the state grant funds as a down payment, Tennyson said.

tohara@keysnews.com