Waterway Owner Once Toiled On Its Docks

By MARK HOLAN The Tampa Tribune

Published: Jun 17, 2007

TAMPA - George Lorton owns a unique slice of the city's oldest port: the 3,500-foot-long waterway where ships and barges dock at Port Tampa.

"It's pretty rare that it's owned by a private property owner," said Charles Klug, attorney for the Tampa Port Authority, which controls the industrial waterways closer to downtown.

Lorton's ownership of the Port Tampa waterway, or slip, allows him to collect fees from businesses that ship goods in and out of the port. He bought the slip and three other nearby parcels totaling about 13 acres from CSX Transportation for $700,000 in 2002.

Private land ownership at Port Tampa began in the 1880s, when Florida gave hundreds of swampy acres known as Black Point to railroad tycoon Henry B. Plant in exchange for developing the port.

As deeds passed from Plant to successor railroad companies and other businesses, the web of ownership was complicated by dredge-and-fill operations that expanded the port into state-owned waters. About 250 acres were created before such fill operations became regulated in the 1960s.

About the same time, state officials began to formalize property records for coastal areas, said Scott Brown, a Tampa surveyor and mapmaker familiar with Port Tampa property records.

"It was brought up to modern standards of land title," Brown said. "That's what makes it insurable and marketable today."

The state retains authority to regulate waterways for the common good, so Lorton can't block or fill the Port Tampa slip on a whim.

Lorton is building a new bulkhead at the Port Tampa slip to help attract businesses and reduce the annual dredging required to maintain the slip's 34-foot depth.

The 62-year-old began working on the waterfront as a ship repair helper in the early 1960s. He said he remembers repairing vessels at Port Tampa when few others would travel to the slip, which lacks dry docks for more extensive work.

Lorton bought International Ship Repair & Marine Services in 1990. Company officials have hinted International Ship will relocate from the Ybor Channel east of downtown in the next few years, in part because of redevelopment.

Lorton, who declined to discuss his company's plans, owns more than 50 parcels in Hillsborough, Pasco and Hernando counties, as well as a shipyard in Galveston, Texas.

Among his Port Tampa holdings are an additional 13 acres purchased from CSX for $350,000, also in 2002. The vacant property is for sale.

"I wanted to see if there was any interest from the city for perhaps developing it as an RV park for people going to Picnic Island," Lorton said in a recent interview.

The city isn't biting.

In 2001, Lorton was part of the group that paid $6 million for the 68-acre Westinghouse site, south of Gandy Boulevard. Three years later, the group sold the land for $16 million to WCI Communities, which is developing it as the Westshore Yacht Club.

In 2005, the port authority paid Lorton $15 million for 39 acres east of downtown to protect the deep water access to East Bay from redevelopment.

Last year, Lorton sold property just north of Port Tampa to a local developer for more than $5 million. Plans call for a strip shopping center on the site across from the Port Tampa City Library.

Lorton lives in a $2.2 million waterfront home in Gulfport. He is a board member of the Florida State Fair Authority and Heartbeat International, which provides cardiac pacemakers and implantable defibrillators to needy patients worldwide.

Since 2000, the registered Republican and his company have contributed nearly $20,000 to local politicians of both parties, including Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio and Hillsborough County Commission Chairman Jim Norman.

Still, Lorton doesn't consider himself a modern version of the 19th-century tycoon.

"Plant not only had to develop the facility, but he also had to develop the market," Lorton said. "In our case, the market is there."