Canceled Condos at Holiday Isle Causes Change in Plans

This past Monday, the sharpies at the Key West Citizen printed a piece about the Holiday Isle in Islamorada toning down their famous end of season party. In the April 9, 2007 edition, an article titled "Holiday Isle promises low-key expo" the article ends with the following paragraph:

Plans call for Holiday Isle to be demolished and
replaced by an upscale hotel-condominium called Ocanos. Owner Ceebraid-Signal Corp. had planned to begin demolition by early April, but bookings are now being taken through the end of the year.

Once again, the professional reporters of the Citizen missed out on a much bigger story which flew right up their schnozollas, did a couple of barrel rolls, and flew out without one of them thinking about what caused them to sneeze and breeze away from a bigger story which was scooped by the Miami Herald the next day:

In "Holiday Isle plans an extended vacation" we read the Big Story which the Citizen reporters couldn't smell:

A weak real estate market may prove a boon to rum
rummers in Islamorada.

The owners of Holiday Isle announced Monday they were scrapping plans to finance a new luxury resort there with condominium sales and will seek a traditional commercial loan to build the project instead.

The decision complicates plans for upgrading the famously honky-tonk getaway, which claims to have invented the frozen rum concoction. And it reflects South Florida's growing disillusionment with condo-hotels, where individuals own the rooms and share in the rental revenues.

If you open that fat link above you will also read how other expensive condotel projects are bombing all over Florida.

As Astro would say on "The Jetsons", Ruh-roh!

Imagine for a moment that the Key West Citizen started digging into the whispers you hear among fearful Realtors and investors in Key West bars instead of burying their heads in the Whale Harbor Sandbar when a real story presents itself.

Obviously, someone at the Citizen read Tuesday's Miami Herald. (Give that dog a bone!)

Today, finally, two days after the Herald scooped them, the Key West Citizen is acknowledging Hard Times at Holiday Isle with their update on the Miami Herald story . . . and doesn't this story make you shake your head at what these guys are really planning with "Ocanos"? Doesn't "Ocanos" sound like a casino name? Hey, I'm just asking! But you did hear it hear first . . .

ISLAMORADA — The stage could be set for a national hotel
chain to set up shop on the Holiday Isle property.

But a decision to halt sales of the 151 units that are to make up the Ocanos Resort does not necessarily mean that Islamorada's biggest party spot will be open much longer.

Ceebraid Signal Corp. President Adam Schlesinger announced Monday that plans for Ocanos to be a hotel-condominium with units starting at $1.2 million have
changed.

Holiday Isle now will be rebuilt as a traditional hotel property, but the Greek-inspired site plans for Ocanos will remain largely the same.

Demolition of Holiday Isle, originally scheduled to begin this month, is still likely by the first quarter of next year, if not sooner, Schlesinger said, contingent upon permit approval from the village.

The decision to scrap the hotel-condominium sales at Ocanos came just a month after Ceebraid announced
that 25 percent of the project's units were under contract. But in an interview Wednesday, Schlesinger said several of those contracts subsequently were canceled, which factored into the company's conclusion that the time was not right to proceed with hotel-condominium sales.