New Port Richey’s Community Redevelopment Council has agreed to negotiate a $7.74 million public incentive with Royal Five Hospitality Inc. for the Aqua Harbor development at what the city considers its future southern entrance.
City officials are expecting that the developer will build a six-story condominium complex and an upscale hotel, possibly a Hilton, at the corner of U.S. 19 and Marine Parkway. The 3.67 acres is the site of the former Magnuson Hotel, which was recently demolished.
Greg Oravec, the city’s economic development director, called Aqua Harbor “a transformative redevelopment project.”
The development will turn the old hotel site “into a landmark waterfront mixed-use project that will anchor the city’s southern gateway, expand our city’s renaissance out of downtown, advance a decades-in-the-making revitalization of the U.S. Highway 19 corridor, and bring us closer to realizing our vision for the future, the best walkable, waterfront, historic hometown in Florida,” Oravec said.
The incentive package proposed would not be in the form of cash to the developer, however. It would be a combination of waived impact and permitting fees, $1.5 million in work on the adjacent Floramar Terrace frontage road and a cash payment from the redevelopment agency to the city of New Port Richey for what is known as a a transfer of development rights.
That agreement would allow Royal Five Hospitality to build the dense housing project in a high-hazard zone considered at risk for flooding where it would not ordinarily be allowed. In recent years, New Port Richey has banked enough credits from other land in the city not suitable for development to assist this project, Oravec said.
In 2006, the city adopted a plan that allows it to send development rights from a property that is environmentally sensitive or not suited for dense development to a site that City Council decides is more appropriate for that kind of development. The interim step is a development credit bank. The rights have a market value that the city sells to a receiving site at a price determined by the City Council.
In this project, the proposal would use 96 of the city’s available 102.5 transfer credits for Aqua Harbor, selling them to the community redevelopment agency at the appraised value, Oravec told the Tampa Bay Times in an email.
That incentive alone is worth $5.4 million.
According to the memo to the redevelopment agency, the city and the agency would work out a payment plan as the development ramps up to assure that the agency “will never be too far out in front of revenues or at significant financial risk if the project does not come to fruition.”
A year ago, the city rezoned the site for the development of a project consisting of a 92-unit hotel, 96 residential condominium dwelling units and a marina. Members of the Simone family, who are developing the site, attended the agency meeting where the incentives were approved. They said that 10 condominium units are already sold and that they anticipate that the start of actual construction will drum up interest in many more sales.
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Explore all your optionsCity Manager Debbie Manns said the family already had proven itself to the community when it took on the development project of building the new Comfort Inn and Suites near the intersection of U.S. 19 and Main Street.
Oravec said the hotel would have to be a Hilton or other upscale brand given the city’s investment. “We need to level up,” he said.
The timeline for the project has the first of two condominium buildings under construction by October with occupancy in January of 2026 and the second condominium building occupied a year later. The hotel will begin construction by October 2026 and be ready to open by March of 2028.
Estimates show that by 2030, the increased property tax value that will be generated by Aqua Harbor will top $500,000 per year.
Agency member Matt Murphy said that the bonus will be to bring tax revenue into the city to accomplish many needed projects and programs and that the project fits in perfectly with the city’s long-range redevelopment needs.
“I’m excited to see that it’s happening,” he said.
