New Home Construction & The Inventory Crunch | Vero Beach 32963

Vero to vote on pay hike for City Council. P12 Brightline upgrades to force detours. P10 High-fives for nonprofits picked as Impact 100 finalists. P16 For breaking news visit

BY RAY MCNULTY

USTA partnership: A big plus for Riverside tennis Most of the arguments put forth earlier this month by opponents of the Vero Beach City Council’s interest in partnering with the United States Tennis Association to manage and maintain the Riverside Park Tennis Complex were nonsensical.

Too many of the remarks were filled with misinformation, disinformation and not enough information about the USTA Florida Section’s offer to enhance the city-owned facility and expand its operations.

Indeed, only one of the claims had any real merit – that there’s nothing USTA Florida can do here that the city’s Recreation Department couldn’t.

That statement, repeated at both the City Council’s meeting last week and a Vero Beach Recreation Advisory Commission session a week earlier, is entirely true.

The city could make the much-needed improvements to the complex, where four of CONTINUED ON PAGE 3

Craig Fletcher, 79, twice Vero mayor, urged electric sale

PHOTO BY KAILA JONES

MY VERO

BY LISA ZAHNER Staff Writer

Is the real estate inventory crunch in Indian River County about to come to an end?

A quick look at the number March 24, 2022 News 1-14 Arts 51-56 Books 46 Dining 69-73

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Ron and Nancy Rosner donate $10 million to hospital

BY LISA ZAHNER Staff Writer

Philanthropy is a deeply ingrained Rosner family value.

Giving back. Paying it forward.

It’s how longtime John’s Island

of new houses, condos, townhouses, duplexes and triplexes planned or approved in the county stirs a sense of optimism.

Figures compiled by the Com-

residents Ron and Nancy Rosner show gratitude for their success, and compassion for those in need.

From children’s literacy to college scholarships, programs to help homeless women and

French government honors Vero Beach veteran for WWII heroism Lots of Vero Beach residents knew 97-year-old Harold Granitur was so successful in business he could

Newsstand Price $1.00

People 15-36 Pets 74 Real Estate 77-88 Style 64-68

afford to embark on a second career, pursuing his passion as a reading teacher championing the cause of literacy.

But it wasn’t until his grandchildren started asking him

BY GEORGE ANDREASSI Staff Writer

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Volume 15, Issue 12 Editorial 42 Games 47-49 Health 57-63 Insight 37-50

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Ron and Nancy Rosner made a $10 million multi-year pledge to the Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital's Health and Wellness Center.

Will planned new home construction bring an early end to the real estate crunch here?

BY STEVEN M. THOMAS Staff Writer

children, free medical clinics and the YMCA, the Rosners have generously contributed to causes and charities from Virginia to Vero Beach.

So it was natural that when

In a tragic end to a life of service to his country, to science and to the City of Vero Beach, two-time Vero Mayor A. Craig Fletcher was found dead in his home Sunday evening. He was 79.

No matter what personal troubles dogged him in his last few years as he approached his 80th birthday in April, Fletcher will be remembered gratefully by many electric ratepayers from Indian River Shores to the far reaches of the South barrier island, and by restaurants and businesses on the mainland, too.

Fletcher, who served a total of eight years on the City Council, was one of the stalwart city officials who, in the early days, pushed the wheelbarrow of the Vero electric sale uphill, sometimes through the mud. After a tour in Vietnam back in his Army days, maybe

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CONTINUED ON PAGE 8 PHOTO BY KAILA JONES

Floral flourishes at museum’s ‘Art in Bloom.’ P34

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Vero Beach 32963 / March 24, 2022

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NEWS New homes and condos CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

munity Development Department show nearly 4,500 new single-family homes have been proposed but not yet approved, along with about 1,200 condos and townhomes.

In addition, the county approved another 2,595 lots or units in 2021.

That is 8,295 new front doors proposed or approved and in some cases under construction. While some are on the island, most are on the mainland.

And that number does not include subdivisions that were green-lighted in 2020, 2019 or earlier that are now being built – places like the latest phases of Waterway Village.

It does not include the 830-home Heritage Reserve subdivision in Vero where the developer hopes to begin construction by the end of the year, but which was first presented to officials many years ago and does not show up in current figures.

Altogether, it looks at first glance like there are well over 10,000 new places to live in the pipeline in Indian River County. So, please, enjoy a moment of optimism.

It won’t last.

Despite the impressive number of

paper houses and condos, brokers, builders and county officials shake their heads slowly when asked if new construction will end the inventory shortage any time soon.

“I can’t predict the future but based on what I have seen during my years with the county, only about half of the proposed units will actually be approved and only about half of those that are approved will be built in the next year or two,” said Ryan Sweeney, head of current development planning at the county.

“Whenever we have a hot market, the fluff factor increases,” Sweeney added, meaning an increase in the number of people jumping into development who won’t necessarily follow all the way through the arduous process from napkin sketch to handing over keys to a happy homebuyer.

“A lot of it is pie-in-the sky stuff,” said Bill Handler, president of GHO Homes, who is building a dozen subdivisions in Indian River and St. Lucie counties, including several on the island. “This is the most challenging time I have seen to develop land and build homes. I don’t think new construction is going to end the inventory shortage in the near future.”

“Every new home helps,” said ONE Sotheby’s broker associate Michael Thorpe. “But there is so much pent-up

demand and such a severe undersupply there’s no way new construction is going to relieve the imbalance anytime soon.

“Even if most of the homes proposed were to come on the market, I don’t think it would cure the problem we have. We are at a 50-year low in terms of our supply and it will take several correction years to fix that.”

“The new homes you see being built out there aren’t helping with the inventory problem for a lot of reasons,” said Berkshire Hathaway agent Chip Landers. “Most of those under construction have already been sold. When you prospect with builders for homes to list, you are lucky if you get one spec.”

With demand for houses higher than ever on the island and mainland, and prices rising at record rates, it seems like the obvious solution would be for established builders to simply ramp up their operations and build more houses.

Double the number. Triple the number!

But there is no quick fix in that direction. Supply chain problems, material price fluctuations, labor shortages and long waits for permits have builders hemmed in, struggling to keep pace with current projects.

“Every builder I know is trying to build as much as they can to accommodate buyers, but it is a tough task with all the supply chain issues and other problems,” said John Groza, who has projects going up and down the coast from Melbourne to Hobe Sound, including at Bridgepointe on Indian River Boulevard where he bought the remaining lots last year and is building six triplexes.

“Trying to get what we need to complete homes is like playing Whac-AMole,” said Handler. “For a couple of weeks it was garage doors. We could not get garage doors to close houses to save our lives. We are begging and borrowing for concrete every day. Windows are a continuing problem. Appliances – forget about it! It is flooring. It is paint. It is everything!”

“With housing prices and rents going up, we have lost a lot of our labor force because they can’t afford the housing in our markets,” said Groza. “They are moving away to look for work in places where housing is cheaper.”

“All builders would love to increase their output to meet this strong demand,” said Karen Kicinski, co-owner of Lifestyle Homes which is building new houses at Bent Pine Preserve and two other subdivisions in Indian River County. “But I think many builders are trying to be as responsible as possible, taking care not to ‘over promise and under-deliver’ due to the uncertainty of the supply chain and rapid inflation.”

Michael Orsi, owner of Sunfield Homes, who is developing Heritage Reserve near the Vero Beach airport, cites the age-old bugbear of builders – bureaucratic slowdowns – as another

factor constraining an increase in the new home supply.

“It is like walking a gauntlet,” Orsi said.

“State requirements, county regulations, municipal rules – everyone takes a whack at you. We had to redo our traffic study, our turtle study and our surveys.

It takes a long time to get approvals and permits. It is no worse here than anywhere else, but it’s still an ordeal.

“Add that to everything else that is going on with the supply chain and inflation and you think you hear Rod Serling in the background saying we have entered another dimension we have never seen before. Next stop the Twilight Zone!”

Orsi said anti-growth sentiment is another factor slowing new home construction here and across Florida. “The municipalities don’t want to grow exponentially, which is understandable, and you always have that sentiment among residents who say, ‘Thank you for letting me in. Now please close the door.’”

That sentiment can lead to government boards and departments slowwalking new development. At the same time, the county building department is swamped with all the new projects that are underway, which results in long waits for inspections and building permits.

Sweeney said home production here is 10 times what it was during the slowest period of the great recession, but there aren’t 10 times as many inspectors.

“Instead of two months, it takes three or four months to get a building permit,” said Landers.

The disconnect here between the number of homes planned and the number built is part of a nationwide phenomenon. According to Housingwire.com, the annual rate of new home permits in February was a strong 1.9 million, but home completions lagged that number by more than a third, with only 1.2 million homes on track to be completed this year.

And yet there is some good news, too, about new construction and inventory.

As Thorpe said, “Every new home helps,” providing a place for a family to live and put down roots. And there are some bright spots in the housing supply picture in Indian River County.

GHO Homes still has more than 20 single-family luxury homesites available in The Strand, and the county approved Handler’s Seaglass subdivision last year across from the Disney Resort, where sitework is underway and 72 new homes will soon be offered for sale.

Just across the Wabasso Bridge, at route 510 and U.S. 1, the county approved Harbor isle in October, a 270home subdivision by Divosta that will open for sales later this year.

Just last month, two builders bought

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Vero Beach 32963 / March 24, 2022

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NEWS land in Grand Harbor where they will be offering a combined 64 new homes, and, according to Thorpe, there is strong interest in another Grand Harbor parcel where an additional 78 houses can be built.

The county last year approved Venetian Grove, a 900-unit subdivision near the Vero Beach Outlet Mall being built by Coral Gables developer, The Kern Company.

Three other mainland subdivisions with more than 500 homes each are in the proposal stage and Orsi is moving ahead with his 830-home Heritage Reserve, where he hopes to begin construction by the end of the year.

“We are still forging ahead,” Orsi said. “It takes the patience of a saint sometimes, but what are you going to do? We have chosen this profession and you just have to go with the flow as best you can and get some houses built. Somebody has to do it!”

Despite the severe shortage of homes and all the obstacles to building new product fast enough to keep up with demand, “new home construction does have potential to help with inventory shortage, especially for homebuyers who have the flexibility to wait to move into their new homes,” according to Kicinski.

“For those buyers who are not in a huge rush to get into their new home, new construction is a great option as the buyer will ultimately get a brandnew home tailored to their wishes and needs.

“To the extent the builder has the means to do so, some builders are also building spec homes or ‘quick movein homes’ in communities, which also has the potential to ease the pain of the inventory shortage.”

Kicinski said Lifestyle will deliver between 80 and 100 new homes this year, while Groza expects to complete about 70 homes on the Treasure Coast in 2022. Handler said he will complete between 200 and 250 houses, most in Indian River County, and dozens of other builders and developers, large and small, are chipping in. Their efforts won’t end the inventory crisis, but they’ll make it at least a little less severe. 

My Vero

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the 10 courts still need to be resurfaced, there are no on-court water fountains, fences are rusting, unsecured wind screens flap in the breeze and the lights are better suited for softball.

The city also could hire experienced tennis professionals to introduce league play, run tournaments and add pro-

grams – especially for juniors in the afternoons, when the courts are deserted Y – to help grow I Tgame in our commuR E the N A nity. R T Uwon’t.

R But the city P O it can’t, given the conAndPmaybe finesOof the Recreation Department’s budget and the City Council’s seeming unwillingness to increase spending.

Over the past several years, in fact,

city officials have been looking for ways to reduce the costs of providing recreation-oriented amenities and operations, preferably by raising fees and pursuing public-private partnerships.

The USTA is proposing such a costcutting marriage, offering to our city its expertise in managing and maintaining public tennis facilities – an expertise that might increase activity at the River-

side Park complex and make it worthy of its picturesque surroundings.

USTA Florida currently manages municipally owned tennis complexes in Cocoa Beach, Fort Walton Beach and Gainesville. According to Vero Beach Recreation Director Jim O’Connell, officials in those cities have been pleased with the results.

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Re a dy fo r yo u r n ex t c h a p te r ? C o n t a c t u s to d ay to d i s c ove r h ow m u c h yo u r p ro p e r t y h a s a p p re c i a te d i n t h i s m a r ke t !

Michael Thorpe t e a m

772.532.0449 mthorpe@onesothebysrealty.com

• RANKED #1 TOP PRODUCING AGENT AT ONE SOTHEBY’S REALTY VERO BEACH OFFICES, #11 AGENT IN INDIAN RIVER COUNTY, #12 AGENT AT ONE SOTHEBY’S AMONG 1,300 AGENTS ALONG FLORIDA’S EAST COAST • 40 YEARS EXPERIENCE IN CONSULTING, CREATIVE MARKETING, AND NEGOTIATING IN THE LOCAL MARKET