New Port Richey gives development grant to a restaurant at its southern entry

New Port Richey has approved another development incentive to a business on U.S. 19 at its southern entrance, this time for a popular restaurant location next door to the multi-story condo and luxury hotel property that got more than $7 million in incentives from the city last month.

On Tuesday, the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency voted to provide a grant up to $117,000 to Seafire Grill, which opened in March on U.S. 19 just south of the intersection of Marine Parkway. The grill offers upscale dining upstairs and a casual dining area and bar at the waterfront downstairs.

It is the site of former iconic restaurants — the Sea Market in the 1980s and Leverocks, which opened in 1992 but was closed after a fire in 2003.

After the blighted and nuisance building sat vacant for years after the fire, plans for Widow Fletcher’s got a city redevelopment grant of $400,000 over three years in March of 2021. But the restaurant only got the first installment and the business closed last year.

Property owner Robert Hirschauer, who also owned Widow Fletcher’s, told the redevelopment board, comprised of city council members, that he is a physician who made a bad business decision. He said he sunk a lot of money into redeveloping the old burned-out building, but made not the best choice in picking the management, with whom he parted ways last year. At that point, he closed the restaurant.

But now, he said, the business and the building are ready to thrive again. It reopened under the new name and management on March 21. Hirschauer gave credit to the new operator Billy Fernandez, known for his popular The Social NPR, a cocktail bar downtown. He said that Fernandez “has a vison” for the business as “a showplace for the city.”

Fernandez said that the restaurant was doing okay now, maybe losing a little money, but that he had booked numerous special events throughout the winter season and expects to have a profitable year. Now, he said, locals and visitors don’t have to leave the county to have an upscale dining experience.

Social media ratings are high, and he said that he expects that as more people find out about the new dining opportunity, things will grow even faster. “We’re not going anywhere,” he said.

Fernandez said the developer of Aqua Harbor next door told him that he doesn’t want to be in the food service business. Fernandez said he told the developer that if he ends up with an infinity pool on the Aqua Harbor roof, he would be happy to run a roof-top bar there.

The grant is the latest given out by the redevelopment agency as the city continues work to revitalize districts citywide. Other incentives have been awarded to the Richey Suncoast Theater, the historic Hacienda Hotel and to purchase land along the Cotee River for expanded waterfront recreational space.

New Port Richey’s Economic Development Director Greg Oravec told City Council that the city has specific rules that govern when they could award funds from their community redevelopment budget.

A project has to be in one of the specific districts targeted for redevelopment including the marine district and the U.S. 19 corridor. The owner has to make at least a $500,000 investment and the funds must go to certain improvements including upgrading commercial property, redesigning a building façade and exterior grounds or creating job or business growth.

If the business doesn’t thrive, the city has provisions to not continue to provide funding in the future years, Oravec said.

He said that Hirschauer had built off the improvements made in the rebuilding of the restaurant as Widow Fletcher’s, making an additional $900,000 investment. Work included landscaping and site improvements, accessibility improvements, painting, flooring, and carpentry.