Mold Remediation in Clearwater, FL

Some Tampa Bay-area restaurants, including Caddy's, Capogna's, Frenchy's, Rod & Reel Pier, are closed because of recent hurricanes.

Tiffany Razzano, Patch Staff

|Updated Fri, Oct 25, 2024 at 6:03 pm ET

TAMPA BAY, FL — After the one-two punch of back-to-back hurricanes, Helene and Milton, many Tampa Bay-region restaurants were affected by flooding, strong winds, heavy rains and power surges.

The aftermath has been difficult for many residents and business owners. While a number of bars and restaurants have reopened to the public, some remain closed because of extensive damage and others are indefinitely closed as restoration work continues.

Here are a few businesses that have closed their doors or are working to reopen:

Caddy’s Bradenton Riverwalk

Hurricane Milton caused major damage to this Caddy’s location along the Bradenton Riverwalk, including destroying the tiki hut at one of its two bars. It’s listed as permanently closed on the company’s website.

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The local chain’s other four locations in Treasure Island, Madeira Beach, John’s Pass and Indian Shores are listed as temporarily closed.

Capogna’s Dugout

This more than 50-year-old eatery announced its closure after Milton and Helene.

“After 52 years of serving our Clearwater community, we have made the difficult decision to close our doors,” the owners wrote in a Facebook post. “After two back-to-back hurricanes and a tough economy, we have taken a hit we cannot recover from.”

Cena

This downtown Tampa staple closed after more than a decade in business.

While the restaurant was closed on and off between Helene and Milton and saw a decline in sales after the nearby Davis Islands community flooded, the departure of chef and partner Michael Buttacavoli two weeks ago “was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” partner Ken Stoltenberg told the Tampa Bay Times.

Frenchy’s

Most locations of this popular northern Pinellas County beach chain remain temporarily closed for hurricane recovery. Currently, only the Frenchy’s Outpost Bar & Grill on Causeway Boulevard in Dunedin is serving food.

Lido Beach Pavilion

Lido Beach and its pavilion, which includes a concession stand, remains temporarily closed to the public after the back-to-back hurricanes.

Rod & Reel Pier

This Anna Maria icon known for its fresh seafood was completely destroyed during Hurricane Milton. All that physically remained of the location after the storm was “only a few piling and boards,” according to a social media post.

The Rod & Reel Pier’s future is in question after being completely leveled but Oliver Lemke, the German-based brewer and restaurateur who bought it last November, hopes to rebuild. He’s launched a GoFundMe fundraiser with a $300,000 goal for the rebuilding process.

“There’s no definite plan on how to proceed yet. Right now, we are gathering information trying to assess our situation. We will do everything within our means to rebuild the pier, but there are many issues to conquer,” he told the Anna Maria Island Sun.

Vela

This Italian restaurant, which opened three years ago in Tampa, announced its closure after Hurricane Milton.

“It is with heavy hearts that we announce the closing of Vela. Unfortunately, the combination of recent hurricane damage and other challenges has made it impossible for us to continue serving you at Westshore Marina,” the owners wrote in a Facebook post.

Do you know of a restaurant or bar that has reopened or permanently closed after hurricane damage? Email Tiffany.Razzano@Patch.com.

CLEARWATER, Fla. — The annual Clearwater Greekfest is happening this weekend.

The event is hosted by Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church, which is located on Old Coachman Road. Admission and parking will be FREE!

The church is just finishing up the paintings that adorn its interior walls. Holy Trinity’s old church was destroyed by a fire in 2015, and it rebuilt a much bigger church that opened in 2019. Finishing the art has been a long process.

Father James Paris has been with the church through it all.

“It’s inspiring and inviting and embracing all at once,” he said of the paintings.

Nearly every square of the church’s interior is covered with paintings by Sacred art painters from Greece.

The interior dome of the church is a great example of the art.

“We are looking at Christ the ruler of all. The one who is," Paris said as he looked up at the dome. "The eternal Logos. Up in the heavens surrounded by the eternal beings."

Right behind the baptismal font is a painting of the baptism of Christ.

“He’s being baptized in the River Jordan by John the Baptist,” said Paris. “You see the Holy Spirit coming down in the form of a dove. And of course, the father’s voice echoing, 'This is my son, in whom I am well pleased.'”

In the choir loft there is a huge painting of the Virgin Mary that includes dolphins representing Clearwater.

“Her blessed veil is protecting all of us,” said Paris. “Our beloved city of Clearwater in Florida. And she’s holding an image of our church. She’s protecting our church.”

Use the video above to watch the report from Spectrum Bay News 9's Rick Elmhorst.

*According to the Clearwater Greek Festival Facebook page, all net proceeds will go to help local disaster relief after the recent hurricanes.

Clearwater GreekFest 2024 Schedule: (October 25th - October 27th)

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

LiFT Academy in Clearwater, which serves neurodivergent children and adults, sustained more than $2M in damage during Hurricane Milton.

Tiffany Razzano, Patch Staff

CLEARWATER, FL — A little more than a year after moving into its new facility in Clearwater, a special needs school sustained more than $2 million in damages during Hurricane Milton.

And that’s “a rough estimate, a conservative estimate” for how much it will cost to restore LiFT Academy, Matt Spence, executive director, told Patch. “We think it will probably be more than that.”

The school, which serves nearly 200 neurodivergent children and adults ages 5 to 57, saw significant water intrusion, which flooded the technology lab, five classrooms and a clinic, among other areas. The storm also destroyed LiFT’s sensory room and the gymnasium floor and roof.

About 70 percent of the school’s campus was affected by the storm, Spence added.

Staff and contractors quickly got to work replacing all drywall and most flooring while the school was closed for about 10 days after the storm hit. Some work will be completed over Thanksgiving break.

Find out what's happening in Clearwaterwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“The big loss is our gym … it will take six months or so to have that replaced,” Spence said. “It’s a space we used for a bunch of different things, including the lunchroom, so we're scrambling around to make do.”

Despite the damages, the school welcomed students back on Monday.

“There was great excitement to be back and see their friends again. Our students are really resilient. They've had a lot of things happen around them,” he said, adding that the school offers “consistency, routine and comfort” to them.

That’s why it was so important to reopen as quickly as possible, Spence said. “When we looked at the facility the week before, it looked like a pretty big stretch, but we got it done.”

LiFT Academy was founded in Seminole in January 2013 with a mission of inspiring and empowering people with neurodiversity to learn, thrive and succeed. In addition to academics, it offers its students life skills, career training and opportunities to strengthen social schools.

The school moved into its new facility, located in the former Clearwater YMCA building at 1005 S. Highland Ave., last year.

“Fourteen months after we open our doors, we have to rebuild our doors,” Spence said.

The school is turning to the community for help to raise the funds needed for its restoration.

“We have a long way to go and insurance only covers so much,” he said. “We are a nonprofit. We operate on tuition and community support and we have a big hole in our budget that we did not plan for and we’re asking the community to help us rebuild.”

Donations can be made directly through the school’s website.

The school’s two major fall fundraisers, which were rescheduled, are another way to support LiFT. The Rise Awards will now take place on Dec. 3 and the LiFT Your Clubs golf tournament is set for Dec. 9.

The school will also organize a student t-shirt contest and the winning design will be printed and available for purchase. Proceeds from sales made by the adult training program’s LiFT Your Heart microbusinesses also benefit the school.

Photo by Phil DeSimone

With two hurricanes in a row in the last month, Tampa Bay has been left wondering if 97X’s annual Next Big Thing would even be happening this year. This morning, Tampa Bay’s darling alt-rock radio station announced the long-awaited lineup.

The one-day festival (a return to its original form that was tried out at last year’s iteration) will see the All-American Rejects serve as headliners, along with Andrew McMahon’s newly reformed rock outfit Something Corporate, and Dayglow, an up-and-coming indie-pop project with singer-songwriter Sloan Struble at the helm. And as per usual, the winner of an annual, locals-only Battle Of The Bands at Tampa’s Seminole Hard Rock and Casino will kick the day off.

Tickets to see the 23rd annual 97X Next Big Thing at Clearwater’s The BayCare Sound on Saturday, Dec. 7 are now on sale, and start at $37.50.

The last time Tyson Ritter and friends swung into town was an August 2023 stop at the ol’ Gary amphitheater for a shitshow of an opening night to the band’s Wet Hot All-American Summer tour, which also featured New Found Glory and The Get Up Kids. Luckily, knowing how well-organized and planned out Next Big Thing is year after year, there’s really next to no chance that the Rejects’ return will be any sort of cringefest.

See the full 97X Next Big Thing 2024 lineup below.

All American Rejects Something Corporate Dayglow Judah & The Lion Gigi Perez Jonah Kagen

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Naples/Fort Myers/Charlotte

Dock of the bay: Hickcox Brothers Marine has taken a 7,700-square-foot industrial space in Cape Coral. The property is at 847-905 SE Ninth Terrace just off Cultural Park Boulevard. Terms of the lease agreement were not disclosed. R & R Engineering Properties is the landlord. CRE Consultants, which announced the deal, says family owned Hickcox will use the space for manufacturing and assembly of items related to docks, lifts and awnings. The company has been in business for 35 year, specializing in building and repairing boat docks, custom canopies and boat lifts. CRE’s Stan Stouder and Phil Deems, of Phil Deems Realty, negotiated the deal.

Industrial happenings: A Broward County investor has bought an industrial building in Fort Myers. The property is at 6371 Arc Way between Plantation Road and Metro Parkway. The buyer, Cooper Crane Holdings, paid $800,000. LSI Cos., which represented the sellers, Estemed Properties, Tia Rosa Development and Parkway Printing, announced the sale. The firm says the 5,002-square-foot building was bought as an investment property. It is currently vacant. A LoopNet profile shows the one-story building sits on 0.82 acres and was built in 1990. Alex Henderson, Max Molloy and Sawyer Gregory of LSI represented the seller. Mary Veria of Veria & Associates Realty represented Cooper Crane.

Foundation funding: The Collier Community Foundation has lent a developer $1.3 million through its Collier Housing Impact Investment Fund. The money went to toward impact fees that allowed a Naples fixed-income apartment community for people 62 and older to open. The investment fund makes short-term, low-interest loans to nonprofit and for-profit developers building affordable housing units that are in need of gap funding. The fund says the revolving loans will “be reinvested into more community housing projects, creating a sustainable funding source.” McDowell Housing Partners is the developer of the160-unit community named Ekos Allegro at 8445 Rattlesnake Hammock Road. Along with many of the standard features available in apartment buildings, Ekos Allegro offers quarterly financial courses, an annual health fair, on-site screening services and a daily meal program. The first residents have begun to move in.

Tampa/St. Petersburg/Pasco/Polk

Borrow to build: The developers behind a new luxury condo complex in Tampa have nailed down $117 million in financing. Terms were not disclosed by JLL Capital Markets, which represented the developer the Westshore Group. The money is for the construction of the first phase of a project named Aqua at Westshore Yacht Club. The work will include the construction of 77 waterfront condominiums and nine villas. The development is being built on 6.1 acres off of South West Shore Boulevard near Gandy Boulevard and on Old Tampa Bay. When complete, the development will have 237 condominiums and 11 villas. JLL says the project will be built in three phases, each one featuring a 17-story condo tower with two-, three- and four-bedroom units.

Retail detail: The Bay Pines shopping center on U.S. Alternate 19 has been sold. The 9,110-square-foot strip mall was bought by an undisclosed publicly traded real estate investment trust for $4.65 million. The seller was developer Kitson & Partners. The shopping center sits on 1.01 acres across the street from the C. W. Bill Young Veterans Administration Medical Center. Plaza Advisors, which announced the deals, says the St. Petersburg center is an outparcel of a Walmart Supercenter. It was 85% occupied at the time of sale with a tenant roster that includes Starbucks, Supercuts and Jimmy John’s. The deal was the last piece of a three-property portfolio owned by Kitson & Partners. The other two, Texas Roadhouse and Village Inn restaurants next to the center, were sold to 1031 investors in separate deals in June. According to Pinellas County records, the Texas Roadhouse sold for $2.9 million to a Philadelphia investor and the Village Inn sold for $2.2 million to a St. Louis investor. Kitson is real estate developer best known for Babcock Ranch, the 18,000-acre solar-powered community on the border of Lee and Charlotte counties. Jeff Berkezchuk and Jim Michalak represented Kitson for the Tampa-based Plaza Advisors.

Helpful hardware: The Home Depot building on Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard in Clearwater has been sold. According to Pinellas property records an LLC with a New York address bought the 114,225-square-foot store for $23 million. The previous owner, also a New York company, paid $17.92 million for it in 2018. Property records show the store was built in 1995 and sits on 13.12 acres. Home Depot moved into the space in 2001, taking over from Builder’s Square, a K-Mart subsidiary that closed down in 1999. The Atlanta hardware chain made the move after closing a nearby store on U.S. 19 and Drew Street. As for the property’s new owner, the state’s Division of Corporations database shows the LLC, 258 Third Avenue, has its principal address in New York. That address matches a brokerage named Smart City Real Estate. Smart City did not respond to a question about whether it bought the property or why its address appears in Florida records. The Home Depot has about 30 stores along the Gulf Coast.

Sarasota/Manatee

Show me the money: The developer behind Madison Bradenton, a new apartment project to be built on a portion of the former Desoto Square Mall site in Manatee County, is getting $60 million in construction financing. Berkadia, the commercial real estate financial company, says the money is going to North Carolina-based Madison Capital Group and is part of a two-community financing package worth nearly $111 million. The other property is Madison Midtown in Melbourne which is getting $50.7 million. The two garden-style multifamily developments will each have 240 units and are set to be completed in 2026. The financing for the Bradenton property comes in the form of a $47 million senior loan provided by Peachtree Group and a $13 million mezzanine loan from Hickory CRE. (Madison Capital had previously announced a portion of the loan for the Bradenton property but not the entire amount nor that it was part of a larger package.) Madison Bradenton will have one-, two-, and three-bedroom units. Associate Director Alec Fox of Berkadia Tampa secured the financing for Madison Capital.

If you have news, notes or tips you want to pass along, contact LLLovio@BusinessObserverFL.com. Or you can text or call 727-371-6944.