It’s no secret the Red Rose Inn & Suites has had trouble selling as a 270-room motel. But what if it was an 80-room drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility?
That’s what Florida Rehabilitation & Recovery Services LLC has proposed in a six-page rezoning application summary submitted to the City of Plant City. It is requesting that the 8.4-acre motel at 2011 N. Wheeler St. be zoned from C-1A to Planned Development so that it may operate a rehabilitation facility on the eastern half of the property.
The Red Rose’s wallpapered ballroom, complete with a chandelier, was once a thriving hot spot for dancing, charity balls and live music. Select rooms included luxurious upgrades, such a four poster beds and parlor rooms with specially upholstered loungers, that harkened back to Antebellum and Victorian fashions. But after Batista and Evelyn Madonia lost the motel several years ago because of financially difficulties, it has become a shuttered facility frequented only by security guards who patrol its expansive parking lot.
“It is unlikely the property will ever again be used strictly as a motel and thus is ripe for an alternative use and/or redevelopment,” according to the submitted application summary. “Granting of this PD would … eliminate blight. … (Without repurposing or redeveloping) the property, it will remain “dark” and possibly fall into disrepair, blighting the immediate area. Approval of this PD application would prevent that.”
In the application summary Florida Rehabilitation & Recovery has proposed that the eastern half of the Red Rose property be used as a drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility. The western half would be used as a motel or other use.
Up to 150 clients could be served in a variety of treatment programs. Clients who have flown in would be picked up and dropped off at the airport by facility staff. All clients would be monitored 24 hours a day and are prohibited from leaving the premise. There would also be gated access.
“Clients have no interaction with the outside community,” according to the summary.
The proposed facility is modeled after White Sands, a facility in Fort Myers owned by Florida Rehabilitation & Recovery Services. With 72-beds, White Sands is regulated by the Florida Department of Children and Families and is accredited by The Joint Commission, a non profit that accredits and certifies more than 20,500 health care organizations and programs in the United States. White Sands has been awarded The Joint Commission’s gold seal, the highest level of certification. The proposed Plant City facility will be similarly licensed and accredited.
White Sands employs over 100 people. A similar staff size, which would include nurses, psychiatrists, psychologists, addiction counselors, and administrative and support personnel, would be used in the Plant City facility. Florida Rehabilitation & Recovery Services plans to use local businesses for food, cleaning and landscaping services, medical and pharmaceutical supplies, maintenance, and building contractors.
Improvements would also be made to the existing grounds. Florida Rehabilitation & Recovery Services has budgeted $500,000 for landscaping, painting, updating security systems, upgrading the kitchen and modernizing all client rooms and common rooms.
Florida Rehabilitation & Recovery Services has not purchased the Red Rose from current owner Louis Spiro, an auto wholesaler from Pinellas Park. It plans to do so only if the rezoning goes through.
“It’s been about three weeks since the initial conversation,” Kiran Patel, Florida Executive Commercial Brokers Inc. president, said. FECB is the company listing the Red Rose Inn. “They are hoping it will go through. You never know how a committee will go or what they neighborhood will say.”
Patel would not reveal the negotiated sale price for the Red Rose if the rezoning did go through, but the Red Rose is still listed at $3.95 million, the same amount it has been listed at since Spiro purchased the Red Rose for $1.5 million at the beginning of 2014.
The application for rezoning was submitted about three weeks ago. Phillip Scearce, principal planner with Plant City’s planning and zoning division, said the application combined with the history of the Red Rose was a “unique circumstance,” in that the motel has not attracted any buyers who want to operate it strictly as a motel. Spiro bought it with the intention of flipping it, and a 2013 Lakeland auction bid of $2.1 million didn’t pull in enough for bankruptcy court approval.
Scearce has begun to look into the rezoning request this week. Planning staff recommendations are tentatively scheduled to be heard by the Planning Board at a Sept. 10 meeting.
The Madonias had made their fortune in the tomato business with East Coast Brokers & Packers. When the Madonias’ daughter, Laurie, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008, the family took a step back from the business to care for her. The Red Rose closed in May 2012, after Laurie died. Her illness, coupled with bad harvest seasons from freezes, a hurricane and a battle with cheap Mexican tomatoes, led to the family’s financial difficulties.