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Historic Tarpon Building Gets New Lease On Life

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By Mark  Schantz | The Suncoast News

Published: March 7, 2009

If these shops could only talk. Over the 80 years it has occupied the spot, a commercial building on North Pinellas Avenue at Athens Street has seen a lot of changes in an area that once was part of this city's thriving sponge industry.

The building, which contains space for two shops, got a new lease on life from its owners, lifelong residents Fanitsa Meehan and Ted Frantzis, her brother. The building is adjacent to the house in which their grandparents once lived.

Meehan decided to relocate her interior decorating business from downtown St. Petersburg to her hometown to help revitalize the sponge dock area that their father and grandfather help build.

In the early 19th century Meehan and Frantzis' grandfather, Capt. Costas Pappas, arrived from the Greek Island of Halki to help build the sponge industry. His superhuman stamina at harvesting sponges earned him the nickname matemi, which means "iron man" in Greek.

Meehan said she and her brother want to help restore the Sponge Docks to its former glory.

The former Christmas gift shop she recently transformed into a store featuring interior design items definitely is not an addition to the city's roster of antique shops, Meehan said. Instead, it offers a variety of upscale and moderately priced home and office design items.

Even in this tough economy people are looking for items to put the final touch on their home design, Meehan believes. People who have found her shop are happy to discover higher-end items on sale in Tarpon Springs, she said.

Her shop includes home decor items ranging from fine furniture to decorative masks imported from Italy. Other offerings include Vietri dishes, Waterford crystal, wall hangings and table and mantel decorations.

She wonders why there are so many vacant buildings in the city.

"Tarpon Springs should take a more active role in identifying and attracting new and upscale businesses, just like is done by Dunedin and St. Petersburg," she said.

"Tarpon Springs has so much history and is such a beautiful city it should be able to attract business. Why is Dunedin and St. Petersburg able to do this but we cannot?"

Frantzis, a retired dentist who serves on the city's Planning and Zoning Board, said he, too, can't understand why Tarpon Springs cannot attract and promote business in the same manner as Dunedin.

She and her brother, Meehan said, want to be part of the resurgence at the Sponge Docks. They are even looking for someone who could transform their grandparents' former house into a restaurant. The former residence was most recently used as an office and has plenty of parking in the rear and place for a deck, she notes.

In addition, the siblings plan to update and reissue the book their father, George Frantzis, wrote about the early days of the local sponge industry, "Strangers in Ithaca - The Story of the Spongers of Tarpon Springs."

Mark Schantz can be reached at 727-815-1075 or mschantz@suncoastnews.com.

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