HERE'S EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT the heat generated by real estate along Tampa Bay's beaches, all summed up in anecdotal evidence by a guy who has lived and done business along the Gulf since he was two years old. The Salt Rock Grill on Indian Shores is one of the region's most popular nouveau restaurants. Next to it is a senior living complex of 165 units. Great views, great location and a short walk for primo takeout meals.

So how hot is the market?

John Loder - whose father William founded the Crabby Bill's seafood chain - called the owner of that property at least a dozen times offering to buy it for conversion into an upscale condominium resort. And 12 times the owner hung up on him. "It isn't for sale," he told Loder, growing more frustrated with each approach.

On the 13th call, Loder, president of Sun Vista Development Group, heard a different answer. "You really want it?" the owner asked. "Send me $100,000 and I'll send you a contract."

No price was named.

"I didn't know what I'd get in return," Loder recalls, "but I'd just lost 20-grand in Vegas and that night I told my friend Steve Gianfilippo that I was going to do it, with or without him. We've been equal-shares partners in every deal I do. I said, 'What the hell, what's another 50-grand?'"

The pair stood in a restaurant parking lot talking it over, facing an 8 a.m. deadline for the money. By 11 p.m., Gianfilippo threw caution to the wind and said he was in.

"Here's your money," Loder said the next morning, handing over a check for $100,000. "And here's your contract," the owner said.

His price? $18 million.

Loder's reaction? Delight. "It worked out beautifully," he says. "Beautiful property."

Every day, more and more stories like this one are filtering out of beach real estate circles. Last summer it was Dr. Kiran C. Patel's reported $40-million purchase of three gulf-front acres on Clearwater Beach. This year it is a growing chorus of smaller yet equally impactful deals that will forever change the face and nature of life along the Tampa Bay Beaches.

Dr. Kiran C. Patel, chairman of Visionary Medical Systems and head of the Tampa-based Patel Foundation for Global Understanding, distracted Clearwater's attention last summer from an onslaught of hurricane threats with his purchase of what was previously known as Tony Markopoulos' proposed resort site.

Markopoulos tried stubbornly - and unsuccessfully - for years to get approval for an independent Clearwater Beach resort. When Patel, who is a big presence in condominium construction in the Florida Panhandle (currently building more than 1,000 condos in Panama City alone), researched the property, he took a calculated gamble that he could succeed where Markopoulos failed.

Six months and $40 million later, Patel's risk paid off when the city approved his modified proposal for a resort hotel and condominium complex.

What changed?

"We did some homework," explains Kirit Shah, Patel's partner in the resort and president and CEO of K&P Clearwater Estate LLC. "Our objective is to do a great signature project for Clearwater Beach as well as to bring a four- or five-star flag as opposed to Mr. Markopoulos, who probably would have managed the hotel by himself."

The city had long made its preference for a flag resort connected with a national chain known to Markopoulos, but he stiffly resisted. In the end, it was a deal breaker for him and a deal maker for Patel. The city also liked Patel's general development experience and financial strength.

"This is an incredibly exciting time to be with the city of Clearwater," says Geri Campos, the city's recently promoted director of economic development and housing. "The Patel project was the third hotel resort project that was approved within a six-month period. Together, they're adding 800 new resort-quality units to Clearwater Beach."

The Patel resort will be the biggest convention facility on Clearwater Beach. In addition to 350 hotel rooms and 75 condominiums, specs include 30,000 square feet of meeting rooms and 20,000 square feet of retail space. Demolition and groundbreaking for the resort could start by Spring 2006.

Recent approvals for the Patel resort and a neighboring $90-million, 250-room Hyatt Clearwater Beach Resort and Spa have fast-tracked Beach Walk, the jewel of Clearwater Beach's "Beach by Design."

"This project, in essence, is a gateway to Clearwater Beach's Beach by Design," Shah says. "It would have been difficult for the city to do Beach Walk without our project."

With all the new construction on the beaches and an influx of even wealthier full- and part-time residents and investors, businessman Joe Jorgensen was asked whether the community where he is based, Madeira Beach, would soon resent and resist its familiar nickname among the locals, "Mad Beach."

"I think it's as 'Mad' as it's ever been," he says chuckling. As president of Travel Resort Services (TRS), Jorgensen is another beach developer and property management specialist who caught the wave at the right moment. TRS is the developer of Madeira Bay, a waterfront community that consists of three-story town homes, a seven-story condominium building, and the All-Suite Resort Condominiums (100 units), two restaurants and a 2,000-square-foot conference center. Ground was broken in March on the resort; by then, only 12 units were still available.

As Paris Hilton would say, that's hot.

"The direction of the hospitality industry is toward amenities," says Jorgensen. "Madeira Bay is the next generation."

Near Madeira Bay, construction of a new 325-space parking garage and retail complex at John's Pass Village has proceeded apace, but its sheer size has jostled the community. "It has caused quite a bit of consternation for our neighbors," admits Patricia "Patty" Hubbard, chief financial officer of Hubbard Enterprises, which owns and operates the Village. "It is massive. Part of it is a parking garage that will be covered on three sides. But because it's not done, they can't conceptualize it."

The project has been discussed in public meetings for years and been the subject of newspaper and magazine articles and photos (this is the third year it has been described in the MADDUX BUSINESS REPORT'S beaches report). And yet there is nothing like reality to step in and awaken a slumbering giant. "I don't even go to the beach grocery store anymore. I go into town," Hubbard says. "My secretary was in the bank and the president of the bank said, 'I don't want to get into a fight with you but I want to know what the hell you're building there!'"

That is exactly the big issue that landed on new Madeira Beach City Manager Jill Silverboard's desk when she took the job last summer. She says the city is working on changes that will allow for larger mixeduse projects and provide greater flexibility in terms of design. "Our parcels are smaller, they're unusual, long and narrow," she says. "Traditional setbacks make redevelopment of those parcels difficult. This change will hopefully provide some creativity and imagination."

One of the most imaginative projects under construction in Madeira Beach is the crescent-shaped Sereno, a 44-unit, fivestory luxury condominium that recently topped out. In buildings like this, the most sought-after units are the ones that are highest up. But the eight units on the first floor have individual courtyards and private pools. "They were sold out in a flash," says Peter Donnantuoni, executive director of Taylor Woodrow North America, which is developing the Sereno.

Units in the condominium range from 2,400 square feet to more than 3,000 square feet and originally sold at prices from $800,000 to $1.3 million. Even before completion this December, Donnantuoni says they are being resold from $1 million to $1.5 million.

Isn't that crazy?

"Yeah, it is," Donnantuoni says. "But people want quality real estate. They want the lifestyle, they want to be on the beach and there is just a limited amount available. The market has been incredibly hot. We sold out within 30 days."

With Clearwater Beach hopping on the redevelopment train, St. Pete Beach was faced with the prospect of being left at the station holding a ticket to nowhere.

But after a four-year process of review and debate, the city soon expects to take the wraps off new regulations and zoning intended to make St. Pete Beach attractive to redevelopment. Its efforts focus on reinvestment in the resort properties along the Gulf of Mexico by allowing up to 90 units per acre for projects meeting the city's performance standards, as well as encouraging the revitalizing of Corey Avenue into a mixeduse, pedestrian friendly, urban village environment.

"We've tried to modify the codes and make it economically worthwhile for people to build something besides condos," says City Manager Michael P. Bonfield. "If we lose the hotels, we lose the traffic that keeps our other businesses functional throughout the year."

Bonfield says the excitement is palpable. "The areas in the city that are most problematic to us are the ones to which we've offered the most incentive ... We know there are three large resort properties that are currently either under contract or are in plans to make major redevelopment moves as soon as we move forward - the Travelodge and Best Western are under contract to the same company. The Coral Reef has been purchased. And the owner of the Dolphin Resort has made public his intentions of redeveloping the resort as soon as the new regulations go forward. The TradeWinds and Sirata are interested in doing some incremental changes."

Speaking of the TradeWinds, the property's president and CEO, Tim Bogott, has converted 288 of the 585 units at Island Grand to condominiums following extensive renovations last summer. As of March, 161 were under contract.

"The buyer of the unit then has the option of putting it back in our rental pool or rent it themselves or put it in another rental program," Bogott explains. "So far, we've gotten 100 percent of those we've closed back into the rental pool. That's important because we are not reducing the number of rooms available for transient guests."

Ralph Stone joined Treasure Island in 2004 as city manager after a distinguished run as an assistant city manager in Clearwater. He, too, has taken to quoting Paris Hilton in describing the development climate.

"Things here are pretty hot," he says. "We probably have half a dozen sites under construction and three or four more in the pipeline. These are substantial for Treasure Island, ranging from 20 or 30 to a couple hundred units each. Many of these were on the sites of old, small or mid-size mom & pop hotels. And we're not experiencing the conversion other communities are; most of these are rebuilding as condo-hotels."

Rising on the Treasure Island radar is a community groundswell for redeveloping the downtown area. Construction of a new, toll-free bridge from the mainland is prompting the talk. "I think there's a real market here for a neat little downtown," Stone says.

Let's turn back to John Loder, whose activity on the beaches goes beyond his Trump-like acquisition of one senior living complex. Loder is buying, developing and managing properties along Gulf Boulevard, the common thread through the beach communities. Here are a few of his recent deals:

• A 63-unit condotel conversion in Clearwater Beach that sold out in two months at prices ranging from $159,000 to $225,000.

• In March he bought a 23.5-acre mobile home park in Redington Shores for $28 million, one of the largest parcels on the intercoastal. The site is now the Redington Shores Yacht & Tennis Club, with 69 single-family home sites (landlocked lots sold out in the mid- $300,000s; open water went for more than $1 million) and 135 condominiums (bearing a $629,000 starting price that rises to $1.6 mil for penthouses).

• He is converting the Madeira Sands hotel into a condominium resort - 43 units on the gulf plus 11 new town homes.

• In Treasure Island, Loder bought three old mom & pop motels - a.k.a. 400 feet of gulf-front real estate - that will be scraped and replaced with 75 condotel rooms. "He's got a lot going on," TRS' Joe Jorgensen says. "Johnny's a good guy. He's fair, he's honest, a good man to work with. That's what we need more of on the beaches."

Three years ago, Loder was still in the family restaurant business. He saw the beach real estate business on the rise and asked some family members if they wanted to join him in developing a property - 18 town homes on Madeira Beach.

"They said, 'No, let's stick to what we know,'" he recalls. Yup, Loder is laughing again. "I leave the house at 6 a.m. and I get home at 9 p.m.," he says. "I'm looking at dirt all day. As much as I love the restaurant business, my schedule doesn't allow me to be involved any more. The money is here for these real estate projects."

Defying the skeptics in his own family, he learned a new business, a new language and discovered a new vision of what could be done on the beaches he already knew like the back of his hand. Millions of dollars later, he ...

Sorry, Loder's phone is ringing. Gotta go.

"Can I call you back after noon tomorrow?" Loder asks before hanging up the phone. "I've got another deal closing in the morning."