Devin Rutkowski remembers what Laurel Park was like in 1990 when he and his wife, Marian, bought their first house there.
It cost $71,000 and included a cottage and detached garage on a 55- by 185-foot site.
"The neighborhood was pretty rough. The majority of the properties were rentals, owned by absentee investors," recalled Rutkowski, who got caught up in revitalizing the early-Sarasota area. "It was infectious. As soon as a house was fixed up, people on either side followed suit."
Now it's tear-down-and-rebuild time in Laurel Park, as land values increase and less-desirable buildings are scraped from their sites.
The prices of new two-story homes, built in older styles, are approaching $800,000. Rutkowski's own Laurel Park Ventures Inc. is asking $749,000 for a neotraditional house that he's building. That includes a restored "nanny flat" and garage in back of the site at 1860 Hawkins Court. That's a secluded street between Morrill and Laurel streets, near the artists' enclave of Towles Court.
Laurel Park extends from Morrill Street south to Alderman, between Orange Avenue and U.S. 301. That includes Owen Burns' Washington Park, where Burns built six Mediterranean homes on Oak Street and Madison and Columbia courts.
David Winterrowd's Affinity Homes is the biggest player in Laurel Oak with 12 home sales closed or pending. Brandyn Herbold and Chad Roffers, owners of the new Sky Real Estate Co., handle all of Affinity Homes' acquisitions and sales in Laurel Park. They're listing Affinity's first completed home, at 617 Ohio Place, for $695,000, including a downstairs master suite and rear garage with studio/guest quarters above.
"People like the feel of a real neighborhood and being able to walk to Burns Court, Towles Court and downtown," said Herbold, who lived briefly in Laurel Park a few years ago. Now, she and her husband, Rob, will move into a new Mediterranean-style house on Oak Street by Affinity Homes. It has bamboo floors, an open main floor, three upstairs bedrooms and a pool in back.
She says that the biggest changes will be coming to Oak Street, where Affinity has four more home sites. The mostly 55-foot home sites in Laurel Park have increased in price from $150,000 to $325,000 in two years, Roffers said.
The $560,000 sale this week of 634 Ohio Place for 1,586 square feet works out to $353 per square foot.
Next to the $300,000 park that the city opened in 1994 on Laurel Street, Howard Rooks and Robert Morris are replacing the old Senior Meadows with nine town houses. They're having to redo the older building in front and keep the footprint of the later building.
Across the street, Bruce Tassinare and Jeffrey Harris bought the 1920s Mediterranean church to save it from being torn down. They'll turn it into a residence with a 16-foot- tall great room and 2,700 square feet.
"It will be a fabulous house," said Tassinare, who restored his own 1924 house in Laurel Park.
Tassinare, a Michael Saunders Realtor, is listing Rutkowski's $749,000 house on Hawkins Court.
"It will have the ambience and architectural elements of the neighborhood. It will be built with the new materials, yet reflect the character of a by-gone era," Tassinare said.
Rutkowski agrees that neighborhood prices have exploded since the first revitalization of Laurel Park, when people were repainting their houses, replacing rotted siding and beautifying their yards. He says he was looking beyond clean up and revitalization to a long-range plan but that never happened.
"My concern is, what will replace the old houses? We need to retain the scale, character and sense of place," Rutkowski added.
Code compliance
He blames the city for neither including Laurel Park in the Duany plan nor allowing such neotraditional elements as row houses and mixed-use buildings that would permit a corner grocer or shop at street level and residences above.
Rutkowski argues that current RMS-9 code is resulting in only large, single-family homes replacing the neighborhoods' 1920s apartment buildings that are reaching the end of their usefulness. Some of the concrete-block apartment buildings from the 1970s that don't fit the neighborhood are still there because they can't be replaced by the same number of units.
"Laurel Park soon won't have anything close to affordable," Rutkowski said.
'Highest and best use'
A number of properties that Roffers and Herbold have found for Affinity Homes are duplexes or triplexes that will be replaced by single-family homes, which they believe is the highest and best use.
Affinity buyers have a choice of about 10 two-story designs that are inspired by Laurel Park's early days. Most offer three bedrooms, three baths, an open floor plan, gas fireplace, ceramic-tile floors and 386 square feet of covered porches, including a master- suite porch. The Mediterranean houses are stucco and the craftsman-style ones have cement-board siding and galvanized metal roofs. Homes are dressed up with brick driveways and sidewalks. Options include a detached garage with studio or guest quarters above.
Affinity has home sales pending, priced from $700,000 to $765,000 on Oak Street and Ohio Place. Two on Devonshire Street are in the $575,000 to $605,000 range. Affinity's 15 newest sites are clustered on Devonshire, between Alderman and Oak streets.
A house Rutkowski built on Hawkins Court illustrates how prices are rising. Rutkowski got a contract on it in March 2003 for $399,000 before completion and closing in February 2004. It resold Oct. 4 for $569,000.
The one he is starting in November, priced at $749,000 for 2,400 square feet of air-conditioned area, will include porches on both floors, three bedrooms, three and a half baths, granite counters, crown moldings and period-style lighting, plumbing fixtures and doorbell. Siding will be Hardiboard, and the Galvalume roof will have a steep pitch. He worked with architect Arthur Ballman on that plan and the Mediterranean-style Casa Seville he will start building soon.
"I use painted wood soffits; Affinity uses aluminum. We have a huge difference in design philosophy," Rutkowski said.