Sarasota - Bradenton Development News

[smiley]

This little boomtown an hour south of Tampa is rocking. The information listed here does not include beach properties, which are booming as well. This is all in and around downtown.


TO help you get your bearings a bit, look at the picture below (not the best, but it will do). First, on the far right is a little purple building right on the water - that is the Van Wezel Perfroming Arts Center. It marks the general area of the Arts District. as you go inland straight from there there is a condo - that is also the Arts Dsitrict. As you move left, you begin to hit downtown. The main area of downtown is where the bridge comes in and the cluster that moves inland from there. Just right of that you will see two cleared lots, those are for 100 Central and Five Point - this is where density will shoot up soon. Downtown extend all the way to the bottom of the picture and beyond. IF you follow the bridge, you see a small peninsula shooting out to the left - that is Godlen Gate.


Here's what I know to be under construction:
Cityscape at Courthouse Centre (residential, commercial, and I think a few offices). The building is actually L shaped, but the rendering does not show that clearly. well out of the ground.



Plaza at Five Points (residential, retail, and offices) THis is 18 stories at the main intersection in downtown, across the street from 100 Central. those tow buildings help frame a nice little park. This is out of the gorund as well.


Viasta Bay Point (on Golden Gate - a booming little peninsula near downtown) This is pretty much complete.


Grand Riviera (also on Golden Gate)



Grand Point (also on Golden Gate)


Sarasota Herald Tribune Offices (this is on Main Street - my favorite office building is in this shot). I have not seen a rendering of this building so I can't really say much about it, but it is being built as I write.


100 Central (formerly Whole Food Center). About 13 floors. THis is actually a very big project that takes up about 2-3 blocks in the middle of downtown and effectively spreads the good areas off of Main Street for a few blocks. It is hard to explain, but this project connects a number of development areas in downtown. It is also well under way and, with Five Points, creates a nice little crane cluster at the moment.








There may be others under construction (I know there are townhouses under construction), but I am not sure, so I will list them a proposed.


PROPOSED

Ringling Square (offices) - downtown


The Savoy (condos) - Downtown


1350 Main (condos, retail) - in the middle of downtown near the Five Points - this will contribute greatly to crazy density in a small area


Plaza Verdi (all manners of things) - right in the heart of downtown as well. I bleive it actually is only 10 stories


Kanaya (conds and retail) on the other end of downtown, but downtown nonetheless (


RivoRingling (condos) - Downtown (15 fl)


The Quay - this area way recently bought by an Irish Developer. It presently has an office building, a Hyatt and lots of Condos around it. He says he wants to spend $1billion (yea, ok) to redevelop it. We shall see.



Metropolitan (condos) - Downtown (sort of) on the way to Golden Gate


Bellisara (condos) - Golden Gate


Allinari (condos) - Arts District


Braodway Promenade (condos) -Arts District (sort of -there is an area between the Arts Dsitrict proper and Downtown that is run down and slated for a number of these projects. Most projects I list in the arts District are in this area)


Marquee (townhome, lofts sort of this) - Arts District


The Boulevard (condos retail) - Arts District


San Marco (condos, etc) -Arts District


Casa de Mayo (condos, etc) -Arts District

[smiley]

Bump. Still a work in progress, but you can look.



City sues to end height limits

The restrictions prevent the construction of a 90-foot-tall concert hall.


By LISA RAB lisa.rab@heraldtribune.com


SARASOTA -- A city attorney has filed suit in circuit court to end height restrictions that Florida West Coast Symphony officials have called an "enormous obstacle" to building their new concert hall on the bayfront.

The City Commission offered to file the suit in July as part of a deal to keep the symphony downtown.

If Sarasota wins a declaratory judgment in its favor, the symphony would be allowed to build a 90-foot-high hall in the bayfront cultural district.

The symphony is not considering any other sites for the project, Executive Director Joseph McKenna said last week.

In his complaint, filed Friday, city attorney Mark Singer argues that the 2001 agreement that created the height restriction is no longer valid.

The agreement -- signed by the city, symphony, and developer of the Renaissance of Sarasota condominiums -- gave the symphony permission to build several structures on the bayfront, including two that would be up to 68 feet tall.

But those buildings never were constructed, and their site plan expired. The city contends that the height restrictions also have expired, and the symphony should be able to build a hall that reaches 90 feet, as an earlier agreement allowed.

Sarasota Renaissance II believes the 2001 agreement is still valid, according to the complaint. Height restrictions protect views from the 16-story Renaissance tower.

Two Renaissance condo owners last summer vowed to fight the city's suit. One of the owners, Terry Owen, on Monday said he had not seen the city's complaint and needed more information before responding.

"I want to take a good, hard look at it, and then we'll go from there," Owen said.

Charles Bubeck, Renaissance condominiums association president, wouldn't comment either, saying the association's lawyer hadn't seen the complaint.

Last modified: October 28. 2003 12:00AM
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Dublin developer buys Quay; plans for $1 billion revamp


BY KEVIN MCQUAID

SARASOTA -- A Dublin, Ireland, real estate developer has bought the Sarasota Quay complex and is planning as much as $1 billion worth of redevelopment on the valuable downtown land.

Developer Patrick Kelly's $60 million deal for the 10.5 acres on the waterfront caps two years of negotiations with the Quay's Toronto-based former owners.

Kelly's Irish American Management Services Ltd. intends to raze the existing Quay buildings dating to 1985 and replace them with a mixed-use project containing condominiums, hotel rooms, office and retail space.

In all, Kelly said, his preliminary development plan calls for 1.5 million square feet of commercial and residential space on the Quay property, at a cost of $750 million to $1 billion.

"We have the sense that Sarasota's time has come," Kelly said Tuesday. "It's so beautiful, and there's a lot there in our favor. I think our timing couldn't be much better."

The Quay plans have become the largest redevelopment project proposed in a city with more than $1 billion in commercial construction already under way or planned.

Within the next two years, new high-rise towers are expected on First Street near City Hall; along U.S. 41 north of Boulevard of the Arts; and at Five Points near Selby Library.

Various new projects are also being considered from Gulf Stream Avenue to 10th Street, including a $100 million condominium tower called The Metropolitan and a 1,600-seat symphony hall.

"There's no other single project that could work as the glue to bring the whole redevelopment of downtown together," said Bruce Franklin, president of local architectural and land planning firm, The ADP Group, which is working with Kelly on the Quay plans.

Construction on the new Quay could begin in 2006 and take five years or longer to complete, depending on what eventually is built there.

Kelly, 59, added he is open to the idea of placing Sarasota County's proposed conference center on the Quay property, if city and county officials would agree to lift height restrictions or offer other incentives.

City zoning regulations would now permit up to 500 condos, 500 hotel rooms and 100,000 square feet of retail and office space on the property. The zoning rules limit construction heights to 180 feet.

A consultant is expected today to tell the county commissioners that a conference center of up to 200,000 square feet at a cost of $65 million is feasible.

Conventions, Sports & Leisure's report favors the Quay property for the center over a 40-acre tract at the Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport because the airport lacks nearby hotels and other amenities.

"It's an opportunity to create value for the city," Kelly said. "It would be to everyone's benefit if it were to happen."

Kelly and Franklin stressed, however, that their current plans for the Quay property are tentative and could change drastically over time.

"The key will be to get people out of their cars and make it easy for them to relate to the ground, with cafés and stores," Kelly said.

Kelly's partners in the Quay redevelopment, his first project in the United States, will be John Walsh and John McCabe, both of whom are also residents of Ireland.

Irish American's purchase ends an often troubled, tumultuous decade at the Quay, known in recent years for vacancies and as the spot of the notorious In Extremis nightclub.

Kelly, who was not yet in control of the property, closed the club in July 2003 by buying out its lease. In Extremis had developed a well-earned reputation for parking lot brawls and disturbing nearby residents.

Nearby property owners said they are excited about the prospects of a new Quay.

"The redevelopment of the Quay is long overdue," said Charles Githler III, a partner in the group that owns the 297-room Hyatt Sarasota hotel.

"That they're starting from scratch there isn't a surprise," Githler added. "A mixed-use project there is the highest and best use for that property. I'm delighted."

As part of the ownership change, Sarasota Quay Inc. Chairman Rene Gareau will no longer be involved with the property. Kelly has named Gareau's son, Jeffrey, as executive managing officer for the redevelopment.

Gareau's group had owned the Quay since 1989, when it bought the property for about $23 million, according to Sarasota County property records.

Kelly has been developing property in Europe for four decades.

He and related companies he controls own and manage more than two dozen hotels, including the 200-acre Tulfarris Hotel and Resort near Dublin, and the 60-room Comfort Inn Talbot Street, also in Dublin.

In the coming year, he plans to introduce the Days Inn and Wingate brands to Ireland.

Kelly's Premier Business Group also is Ireland's largest serviced office center owner, with a portfolio of 16 centers in Dublin and Belfast, according to the company's Web site.

In addition, he has developed apartments and helped transform Dublin's once-blighted financial district into a modern urban center.

Kelly's most ambitious redevelopment project to date in Dublin is the Smithfield Market, where he is constructing 900,000 square feet of commercial and other space.

"We're used to bigger projects," Kelly said. "We like them."

Last modified: January 28. 2004 12:00AM
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County wants city involved in center

But some Sarasota County commissioners question the value of a new conference venue.


BY KEVIN MCQUAID

SARASOTA -- The Sarasota County commissioners endorsed a proposal for a conference center that could cost $65 million.

They also agreed that they need to involve city officials in the planning.

County Administrator Jim Ley said he spoke to Sarasota City Manager Michael McNees about the project on Monday, and that the city commissioners also favor a conference center somewhere downtown.

Conventions, Sports & Leisure International Inc., the consultant, said the region could support a 140,000-square-foot to 200,000-square-foot center.

Such a center would pump $27 million annually into the local economy, create 700 jobs and smooth out seasonal dips in tourism, the consultant suggested.

"This has the potential to play an integral role in your economic development efforts," CS&L partner John Kaatz told the commissioners.

The project could cost anywhere from $36.4 million to $65 million.

The commissioners questioned the full economic impact of a conference center, especially one that would require a $650,000 annual operating subsidy.

"The numbers in question are difficult to understand," Commissioner Nora Patterson said. "We need to know how much does tourism bring to the area because of a conference center? If it's a 2 percent increase, that's quite a big difference from 30 percent."

Kaatz also discussed potential funding, including resort and food and beverage taxes.

"The visitor industry would largely pay for this," Kaatz said.

Katherine Klauber Moulton, president of The Colony Beach and Tennis Resort, said the county should consider expanding the number of funding sources.

"I don't think we want to raise taxes to the point where we hurt our business or customer base," said Moulton, a member of the county's Tourism Development Council.

The commissioners and county officials also cautioned much work remains ahead.

"We should definitely continue studying this, but I don't want anyone to jump to the conclusion that we're going down that line," said Commissioner Shannon Staub.

"There are many other emerging questions that need to be answered," Ley said.

Last modified: January 29. 2004 12:00AM
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[Jasonhouse]

Some more articles for the archival part of this thread....


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Quay plans point to city's boom


Real estate market observers say investor interest in Sarasota is aided by U.S. economic forces and demographic changes.

BY KEVIN MCQUAID


SARASOTA -- Six years ago, city officials decided to spark redevelopment on North Tamiami Trail by selling its derelict Mission Harbor property.

To generate interest in the 11-acre tract, city planners sent out some 250 information packets to real estate developers and builders nationwide.

But Sarasota hadn't yet ascended into the real estate stratosphere. Nor had it experienced skyrocketing property values, the way Naples or Palm Beach had.

When the deadline came, Sarasota had received just five responses. Developers, it seemed, weren't interested in Mission Harbor, or the city's $3.1 million asking price.

Less than five years after the Georgia-based Wynnton Group Inc. completed the first Renaissance tower on the site, Sarasota is flush with projects, investment and proposals.

"The market now is completely different than it was then," said John Harshman, president of commercial real estate brokerage Harshman & Co. Inc. "We were just really coming out of the recession of the early 1990s, which was devastating to real estate."

The most high-profile proposal in the city's 100-year history emerged last week, when Irish developer Patrick Kelly completed a $60 million purchase of the Sarasota Quay.

Although Kelly's plans aren't yet firm, he has floated the idea of building between $750 million and $1 billion worth of condominiums, hotel rooms, office space, stores and parking on the Quay land.

Real estate market observers say Kelly's plans represent a culmination of investor interest in Sarasota, a progression aided by economic forces and demographic changes nationwide.

"Interest rates were a lot higher five years ago," said Ian Black, president of Ian Black Real Estate, a Sarasota brokerage firm. "And interest rates are one of the major keys -- they make it easier for builders to borrow money and easier for buyers to acquire property."

Black and others also point to the series of increasingly upscale developments such as the $100 million Ritz-Carlton Hotel and the $100 million Sarasota Bay Club retirement community that have furthered investor interest and recognition of Sarasota.

"We all knew the impact that the Ritz-Carlton would have," Black said. "And it has. It happened in Naples, and now it's a mirror image of that here."

"Sarasota has come a long way, and the Ritz-Carlton has made a big difference in this community," said Richard Zipes, the Fort Lauderdale developer behind the $100 million Metropolitan condos under construction at 1 N. Tamiami Trail, adjacent to the hotel.

Since the 266-room Ritz-Carlton opened in November 2001, developers have constructed or proposed more than $1 billion in new development downtown.

Those projects include the 16-story Metropolitan; the 17-story Plaza at Five Points; the 11-story Whole Foods Market Center; the nine-story Courthouse Centre at Main Street and U.S. 301; and a three-story headquarters for the Herald-Tribune, at 1741 Main St., all of which are under construction.

Developers have also proposed projects that will add a 17-story condominium tower adjacent to Renaissance; $85 million worth of residences and boat slips on a 7.6-acre tract at the Sarasota Yacht Center; a $30 million, mixed-use project that will result in apartments, a Publix supermarket and the new Broadway Bar on 10th Street; a 17-story residential tower with ground-floor retail at Main Street and Palm Avenue; and a 13-story condominium building at Ringling Boulevard and Osprey Avenue.

Those in local real estate say Wall Street ups and downs have also played a role in Sarasota's boom.

"A tremendous amount of money was made on Wall Street in the 1990s," Harshman said. "But the stock market decline that followed scared a lot of people. As a result, a lot of money is now flowing into hard assets, like real estate."

Harshman said aging, wealthy baby boomers who both inherited large sums of money and earned unprecedented amounts throughout their careers have also fueled Sarasota's climb.

Black agrees with Kelly, who said last week he thinks Sarasota's "time has come."

"The great challenge for us now will be not to miss the opportunity that's being presented to us," Black said.

Last modified: February 04. 2004 12:00AM
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Lakewood Ranch -- send in the clones


BY MICHAEL POLLICK

aerial


renderings




LAKEWOOD RANCH -- At the moment, the other Main Street, the one planned for Lakewood Ranch, is 23 acres of weeds sloping down to Lake Uihlein.

True, a town hall is sprouting steel wings from a concrete block base, but that's about all you can see, except on the planning board.

The lake, at least its western side, is a mile-long, mined-out shell pit, but on its way to becoming the view for millions of dollars in condominiums.

The condos, especially the recently unveiled "WaterCrest" to the north, are selling on the notion that they're "within walking distance" of a Main- Street-in-the-making.

The fever is such that the builder, Homes by Towne, has held three successive lotteries this year to determine who gets to spend as much as $550,000 to become a WaterCrest owner.

It's a sign that Lakewood Ranch is maturing.

A plan to turn vast bucolic tracts into a suburban city of 50,000 that, 10 years ago, raised some eyebrows, is starting to chip away at not only the traditional population centers of Southwest Florida but also its culture.

No longer just muscling home sales, Lakewood Ranch is pulling in the kind of amenities that its burgeoning population demands: a dinner theater, a movie house, restaurants and shops.

Those will further boost the development's primary aim: selling thousands of homes to retiring boomers and well-to-do professionals.

An eye-soothing avenue of stores and eateries, reminiscent of Disney World's Main Street but more practical, will soon spring up from the weeds.

In some ways, it will mirror Sarasota:

An eight-screen arts movie house run by the Sarasota Film Society, a pioneer of art films in downtown Sarasota at its Burns Court Cinemas.

A dinner theater operated by Bob Turoff, whose Golden Apple Dinner Theatre on Sarasota's Palm Avenue, has served prime rib to the tune of "Singing in the Rain" for three decades.

A gourmet grocery store and a restaurant operated by the people behind Morton's Market and Fred's restaurant on Osprey Avenue near Hillview Street in Sarasota.

"It is like an amalgam of Burns Court and the Hillview District all thrown into one place," said Dick Morris, managing director of the film society.

You could rough out the cost of the two shopping districts, Main Street and San Marco Plaza, at $50 million, but for Lakewood Ranch's parent, Schroeder-Manatee Ranch Inc., the name brands being transplanted are priceless.

"I think their idea has been, 'Let's get the things that seem successful on a local basis in Sarasota and clone them,'" said Kerry Kirschner, executive director of the Argus Foundation, a Sarasota-based public policy foundation that numbers many Southwest Florida executives as its members.

"I think it is ingenious, both on the part of Lakewood Ranch and the merchants who are going out there."

Solid planning

Sitting in a conference room at Lakewood Ranch Realty, John Swart uses a felt-tip pen to delineate where the Main Street district will fit into the map most people know.

"People still really don't have a clue how big this project is," said Swart, the company's vice president for commercial sales. "We try to soft-peddle that because it is a 20-, 30-, 40-, 50-year project."

Swart's been in on the planning and the wheeling-and-dealing going on east of Interstate 75 in Manatee and Sarasota counties for a decade.

Lakewood Ranch is 28,000 low-lying acres owned since 1922 by the heirs to the Schlitz Brewing Co. fortune. It wasn't until 1993 that they started planning the development of the ranch, long the home of cattle, tree and sod farming.

They hired the best planners and salesmen they could, including Swart and Englishman Roger Postlethwaite, and charged them with turning the site into a city.

The property is so big that it runs three interstate exits: University Parkway, State Road 70 and State Road 64 to the north. Roughly, the property is 8 miles long by 6 miles wide.

The acreage where most of the homes and businesses are, between I-75 and the 8-mile- long Lakewood Ranch Boulevard, is what most people think of Lakewood Ranch, but that's only a third. The majority, to the east, just hasn't been used yet.

The mix in the visible third includes corporate clients such as FCCI Insurance. They've swelled the development's work force to 8,200 this year and a projected 12,300 by 2006.

Visiting with Swart infrequently makes him seem like a magician waving a wand over flat swamp land and turning it into headquarters, homes and prize-winning golf courses.

But the real process is arduous and tedious. As he unfolds the latest plans for Main Street, Swart notes that it's the 59th version.

He started Main Street's evolution with a memo to Postlethwaite back in 1998 suggesting it was time to get the shopping district on the front burner. He then visited places that were, at that time, standard-setters for quaint downtown design: Park Avenue in Winter Park and Celebration, Disney's created- from-scratch suburban village near Orlando.

Retailers look at populations within a ring around a potential store to help them decide whether there is enough of an audience. Those figures for Main Street are impressive.

In a five-mile radius, there are 22,000 homes. At 2.5 residents each, that's 55,000 people. Conservatively, there will be 28,000 homes by mid-2009, or a population of 70,000.

Adding to Lakewood Ranch's allure is that Sarasota County has, for the most part, banned commercial construction east of I-75.

Partly because of that prohibition, "All those folks out there really have nowhere to shop," Kirschner said.

More prospects

Stan Appel, who's developing San Marco Plaza, is working the phones and the meeting circuit for his development.

His 7-acre property, even the parking garages, is supposed to evoke the 800-year-old architecture of the project's namesake, the Piazza San Marco in Venice, Italy.

Appel's already looking to add more tenants.

"We are trying to finalize an Imax theater on our site," Appel said. "We do have two banks vying for the corner there. What it comes down to is, they have to accept our Venetian facade design."

While residents and visitors have known for a long time that a big shopping-and-entertainment component was coming, SMR executives have kept the details close.

San Marco was announced on Feb. 18, and the film society news came out last week.

The excitement is luring residential prospects, an ideal situation for someone selling a 180-unit condo project.

Alan Boiko recently sold a home at River Club, close to Lakewood Ranch's orbit. Now he's scouting a new place. Hearing about Main Street, he's back visiting the condo center run by Homes by Towne.

Boiko went in looking for a brochure and found that the sales staff couldn't even provide firm pricing for units to be sold by lottery within two weeks.

After three successive lotteries, the sales people haven't decided how high to boost the prices this time.

In the first round, prices on 36 units ranged from $346,000 to $461,500. The second, broken into two lotteries, saw 18 units go for $401,000 to $537,000, and the next 18 from $403,500 to $549,200.

"Crazy, ain't it?" Boiko quipped.

Ripples

With 4,050 homes already built, Lakewood Ranch is a population center in its own right.

The growing community, and the marketing that surrounds it, is making ripples, jacking up property values outside its borders as well as within.

"What Lakewood Ranch did is bring people east of the interstate," said Rick Bader, a salesman for CountreeWide Realty who's been selling in this rural section of Southwest Florida for 13 years.

Before the ranch's first subdivision, Summerfield, was built starting in 1995, "people would drive out past the Interstate on 70 or 64 and go 'Why do I want to be way out here?'"

Bader's company just began selling heavily wooded sites called Twin Rivers, a few miles up a country road from State Road 64.

They're proving so popular that the developer is having to hold drawings to decide who buys. When Phase One was an instant sell-out, Phase Two prices were bumped up.

The first lots, sold last summer, were in the $50,000s and $60,000s. Another 110 lots, the second phase, are to be sold Saturday afternoon for from $60,000 to $82,000. They'll be divvied out only among those who've signed up in advance and are willing to post a downpayment on the spot.

As Main Street and San Marco Plaza shape up in Lakewood Ranch, it's becoming clear that the center of gravity of both Sarasota and Manatee counties are being pulled east by the muscular development.

Last year, SMR officials tried but failed to convince the Florida Symphony Orchestra to uproot and move east.

But the two entertainment venues that plan to make the leap showed that other important cultural institutions have fewer qualms, or, perhaps, that they at least want to have their feet in both the downtown camp and the eastern frontier.

Golden Apple managers will establish an eastern beachhead within San Marco and the Sarasota Film Society, with 4,800 members, will trump its downtown three-plex Burns Court by hosting eight screens at Lakewood Ranch.

The two companies jointly developing Main Street, SMR and Casto Southeast, invited the film society to come play.

"They asked us and we absolutely jumped at the opportunity," said Morris, the society's managing director. "I'm thrilled that they asked us."

Last modified: February 29. 2004 12:00AM
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Planners push for a shadier, more livable downtown

By LISA RAB
lisa.rab@heraldtribune.com
SARASOTA -- At the corner of Main Street and Central Avenue, a 16-story tower featuring street-level retail shops below offices and condominiums is taking shape.

One block west, at Main and Palm Avenue, a developer plans 17 stories of shops and condos. A similar mixed-used project is planned behind Sarasota News & Books, near the same intersection.

The three projects are signs of a transformation that city planners hope will spread along Main and Palm.

The idea is to make downtown an attractive place to live and work, with enticing storefronts and shaded sidewalks.

The city's planners want the City Commission to adopt a new zoning code this spring to encourage mixed-use developments and require street-level retail establishments with shaded sidewalks on Main Street, North Palm Avenue and Central Avenue.

The code would create new mixed-used development zones and set design standards for new buildings on all major downtown streets.

If approved by the City Commission, it could lead to the rezoning of more than 1,800 properties, and eventually change the look of downtown.

How much of that transformation should be regulated by the city -- and how much should be left to developers -- is the subject of some debate.

City planners are seeking "a degree of visual harmony" downtown, deputy planning director Michael Taylor said. "We don't want every building to look identical."

But some business owners and architects say the new rules will promote contrived, Disney-style design.

"They're playing architect and they shouldn't be," said Brad Gaubatz, past president of the Gulf Coast chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

Andres Duany, a Miami-based planner the city hired several years ago to create a downtown master plan, called for a walkable city where residents could live, shop and work downtown.

In the code city officials are considering, that translates into rules governing building materials and the shapes of windows and rooftops for every new development on a major downtown street.

Ground-floor retail businesses shaded by awnings, galleries or columned overhangs would be required on Main, North Palm and parts of Central.

The amount of glass allowed on the outside of some buildings would be limited, and windows facing major streets would have to be vertical or square.

"If you're looking to create a retail environment, the thought is you'd like to have a covered street," Taylor said.

Gaubatz and other architects agree with the pedestrian-friendly idea, but don't want to be told how to do it.

"We're suggesting you say what you want to accomplish. You don't say how to accomplish it," Gaubatz said.

Duany's "smart growth," anti-sprawl plan includes a mix of residential and commercial development.

To help concentrate more intense development in one downtown core, the planners decided to replace the approximately 20 downtown development zones with four mixed-use zones.

Under the new zones, most of the area north of Fruitville Road would be designated for residential development, with height limits of three stories.

Along the bayfront, mixed-use developments of up to 18 stories would be allowed, while in the core of downtown, those developments would be capped at 10 stories. In a so-called edge zone, such as along Fruitville Road, buildings would be limited to five stories.

Robert Seth-Ward, who owns Churchills Furniture store on the north side of Fruitville at Lemon Avenue, is caught in the middle of the proposed zoning change.

Under the proposal, Fruitville -- a four-lane street now lined with antique shops, thrift stores, bank parking lots and assorted other commercial developments -- would become the dividing line between the center city and downtown neighborhoods.

Seth-Ward's property, purchased for $1.8 million two years ago, straddles the line between the two zones.

Seth-Ward said a prospective buyer knocked his offer down from $4 million to $3 million because of that. Since then, Seth-Ward said, he has spent $8,000 hiring an attorney and land planner to protest the new code. He's sure there are others like him.

"If they do it, it's unconstitutional; it's un-American; it's unfair," he said.

Churchills is not the only property that would change.

On the south side of Fruitville, one- and two-story thrift shops could eventually be replaced with 10-story developments. On Lemon Avenue, just north of Seth-Ward's land, antiques stores, a new coffee shop, a tire store and an auto repair store would be zoned residential.

If the code is adopted, planners are proposing to rezone all the properties at public hearings beginning this fall. Existing businesses like Seth-Ward's could stay on the land, but if they were to sell or expand they would have to be converted to residential uses, Taylor said.

"The idea was to paint a picture of change. That change would occur over time," Taylor said.

But Seth-Ward is not comforted by that promise. Like the architects who question the design standards, he wonders whether such a major revision of the zoning code is necessary.

"I don't understand why we need it," Seth-Ward said. "What is so broken right now?"



Lisa Rab can reached at (941) 363-5554.

Last modified: March 30. 2004 12:00AM
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[Jasonhouse]

Downtown Masterplan: 900 Acres, Sarasota, Florida


The Downtown Master Plan was prepared for the City of Sarasota by Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company in conjunction with Cardinal Carlson + Parks, Hall Planning & Engineering, and James Moore. “This new plan is built on earlier plans for the Downtown, including those of 1983, 1986 and John Nolen’s plan of 1925. The main contribution of this Master Plan is an increase in precision, the assignment of priorities, and the provision of tools for implementation - specifically a new zoning code. Sarasota is a relatively young city and this plan and zoning code will provide the guidance and discipline for the City to gradually blossom into a period of graceful maturity.”

Major themes in the new plan are: Connecting the Downtown to the Bayfront;, A System of Walkable Streets; A Balanced Transportation System; Walk-to-Town Neighborhoods; Civic Improvements; and Strategic, Pragmatic Implementation.

The contradiction in the motto of Sarasota, “A city of urban amenities with a small town feeling” can only be achieved with an urban Downtown Proper surrounded by small town neighborhoods. The Study Area of this plan includes the three inner-city neighborhoods, Rosemary, Gillespie Park, and Park East, recognizing that together with the Downtown Proper they form an integral part of the pedestrian experience and must be conceived of as a single sector.

By designating each street either ‘A’, pedestrian oriented, or ‘B’, auto oriented, based on what currently exists, this Master Plan provides a guide for future growth, enabling Sarasota to fulfill the potential of its existing street network, creating a cohesive and functional system that facilitates vehicular movement and at the same time creates a viable and aesthetic system for pedestrians and bicyclists.



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Article published Apr 16, 2004
Debating design
A new look for downtown?

By Lisa Rab

SARASOTA -- Small, pink stucco stores with Spanish tile awnings share a block of Main Street with a marble and glass high-rise.

For some residents this eclectic look contributes to Sarasota's charm.

"At least this has some character," said Alex Muller, a carpenter sitting outside a Main Street bookstore this week. "You can still see the sky."

But the city's planners are pushing for a little more similarity in building design. They call it "a degree of visual harmony" -- and they're seeking tougher standards to make it happen.
Their proposals are not universally liked. Some of the city's architects are unhappy about them, and a debate is raging over how much the city should control the appearance of its buildings.

"Right now, Sarasota downtown is getting very bad architecture," said Andres Duany, the Miami-based urban planner who wrote the city's downtown master plan. "They should demand a code that establishes quality."

But many local architects oppose even minimal regulation. Government, they said, should not dictate aesthetics.
"We'll start getting good architecture by the public demanding it," said Brad Gaubatz, past president of the Gulf Coast chapter of the American Institute of Architects. "It's all subjective opinion."

Duany reignited the debate earlier this week when he met with the City Commission and complained that the proposed architectural standards were weak, in comparison with the code he had proposed.

Among other things, the standards would regulate the building materials, the shape of windows and the amount of glass allowed in new buildings on major downtown streets.
They would also require awnings or columned overhangs on Main Street, North Palm Avenue and parts of Central Avenue.

The planners wrote those minimal standards so buildings would share certain characteristics, not so they would all look the same, Sarasota's deputy planning director Michael Taylor said.

"We're not trying to over-regulate," Taylor said. "If you really are concerned about avoiding undesirable buildings, then yes, code it to a higher degree. But in doing that you're going to create a lot more controversy."
Duany is famous for designing villages like Seaside, a Florida Panhandle resort with architecture reminiscent of a small Southern town. He says it's difficult to impose design standards on existing cities like Sarasota, but strong rules are necessary to prevent ugly buildings.

The cities of Venice and North Port have design standards, as do Charlotte and Collier counties.

Still, local architects say rules don't promote good design.

Duany "believes that there should be guidelines to specify what you can and cannot build, and that ends up in architectural mediocrity," said Jack West, a local architect who designed the City Hall building on First Street.
One of the buildings Duany criticized is One Sarasota Tower, the building with the glass facade at the corner of Gulf Stream Avenue and U.S. 41. He also railed against the Italian-flavored architecture he calls "second-rate Mediterranean."

The proposed code encourages Mediterranean-style architecture, Duany said, because when he wrote it that's what the public wanted. But earlier this week he told the City Commission it should promote modernist architecture, because the city has been acclaimed for that sparse, functional style, which is indigenous to Florida.
Several local architects also favor a more modernist design style. But no one is sure what a city zoned for modernism would look like.

And neither Taylor nor the architects believe one style should be required.

"You don't make good cities by dictating the style of the city. That's a Disney approach to things," said Robert McCarter, former director of the University of Florida's School of Architecture.

Meanwhile, some of the pedestrians downtown this week were more concerned about the height of new buildings than their architectural style.
"What we would hate to see is all the little cute stuff torn down," said Dr. Malouf Abraham, who spends his winters in Sarasota with his wife, Therese.

"The mix and mingle can be kind of interesting."

The proposed code allows -- but does not require -- buildings in the downtown core to be 10 stories tall. It encourages developers to build residences above office and retail shops. Under current zoning regulations, buildings can reach 180 feet, but many one- and two-story buildings remain.
Dolly Nichols, a respiratory therapist who has lived in the Sarasota area for 18 years, said city leaders should let the high-rises come, while still allowing for different types of architecture.

"The more eclectic the better," Nichols said "If you have one look, it becomes dated, it becomes old."
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pb...404160323/1060



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Article published Apr 19, 2004
Traffic proposal depends on fees

By Lisa Rab

SARASOTA -- Despite a growing chorus of complaints about downtown traffic, the city is considering a plan that would excuse developers from making road improvements to accommodate their new condos, offices and shops.

Instead of building roads, widening streets and the like, developers would pay a "development impact fee." The city would use the money to pay for citywide projects such as public transit, bike lanes, walking paths and roundabouts.
The idea is for the city to manage its transportation system while allowing mixed-use downtown development to continue unimpeded.

Business organizations such as the Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Partnership support the proposal.

But there are critics. One is the Bayfront Condominium Association, which represents thousands of condominium residents and says city leaders don't have an overall traffic plan and have put off drawing it up for years.
The newest proposal, they argue, will only make the situation worse.

"It's very troubling. It says 'give developers whatever they want,'" said Robert M. Johnson, a lawyer who represents the organization's traffic committee.

If the City Commission supports the idea at a meeting Monday, it will have to hold public hearings and amend the city's land-use plan before putting the new policy into effect. The process could take as long as three years.
In that time, city engineers would devise a plan to spend the money collected from the developers.

"We don't know exactly what we're going to put," traffic engineer Sam Freija said, adding that some suggestions could come from a recent city mobility study.

Already, a special regulation allows developers in most of downtown to postpone or avoid constructing road improvements. Projects that are required to build infrastructure have three to five years to construct it.
The downtown transportation "exception" area was created in 1998 to encourage dense, mixed-used development downtown. City officials thought stricter rules would scare developers out of the city into the suburbs.

But the newest proposal would do away with even those minimal restrictions. It would allow developers in the area to build, regardless of the traffic impact, as long as they pay city impact fees.

According to the Florida Department of Transportation, the number of cars traveling on U.S. 41 between Gulf Stream Avenue and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Way increased by more than 11 percent from 1998 to 2003 -- from 35,000 to 39,000.
But some city officials dismiss traffic complaints, saying congestion is a part of urban life.

"Traffic is just a perception," Freija said. "People think what they want to think."

Freija and other officials are focused on making the city more pedestrian-friendly, with roundabouts, bus lanes, bike lanes and more crosswalks.

"If you choose to live in an urban core, one of the trade-offs is you're going to have more congestion," Vice Mayor Mary Anne Servian said.
But Johnson and others worry about the traffic impact of hundreds of new condos planned along Palm Avenue, Main Street and U.S. 41 -- including Patrick Kelly's proposed $1 billion redevelopment of the Sarasota Quay.

"You're not going to make it a pedestrian-friendly city by creating gridlock," said Ken Shelin, a city planning board member and president of the Bayfront Condominium Association.

Dan Lobeck, a local attorney who is president of a group called Controlled Growth Now, suggested that limiting development would be the best way to address the traffic problem.
"They can constrain development and keep traffic from becoming as bad as it otherwise would be," he said.
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pb...plate=printart



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Article published Apr 20, 2004
City OKs downtown traffic proposal
The $40.8 million plan includes numerous improvements, most subject to later approval.

By Lisa Rab

SARASOTA -- A $40.8 million transportation plan that includes new roundabouts, bus lanes and crosswalks on several major downtown streets won approval Monday from the City Commission.

The decision marks the city's first step in pursuing 10 road projects designed to improve traffic flow and make downtown friendlier to pedestrians and bicyclists.

Some of the projects could begin this summer, while others might take up to 20 years.

Most have not yet been funded and will come back to the City Commission for financing and design approval.
"We couldn't go after funds when we didn't know what the improvements were," city traffic manager Sam Freija said.

About half the cost of the plan is dedicated to building two roundabouts -- slow-moving traffic circles -- on U.S. 41 at Gulf Stream Avenue and Fruitville Road.

Last month, that $19.5 million proposal drew protests from bayfront condominium residents and others who said the roundabouts required more study.

Florida Department of Transportation officials also criticized the plan, saying the traffic improvements could be achieved at a lower price without the roundabouts.
But the city commissioners said the roundabouts are safe, are attractive, and will make the bayfront more pedestrian-friendly.

"Although this is expensive, it's probably offset by what it would cost us to do the other," said Vice Mayor Mary Anne Servian, referring to the alternative of adding traffic lanes instead of building roundabouts.

The roundabouts could take six to 20 years to build.

In the meantime, the city plans to construct some of the road improvements suggested by the Mobility Now! committee of the Bayfront Condominium Association, an activist group that called for immediate solutions to the traffic problems on U.S. 41.
This summer, city engineers plan to partially close the eastern leg of Gulf Stream Avenue at U.S. 41. In 2006, they want to construct left-turn lanes from U.S. 41 onto Main Street and to Marina Jack. By the next year, they want to build a continuous right-turn lane on U.S 41 headed west to Sunset Drive.

The time line for those projects will depend on funding, some of which is expected to come from the developer of the Ritz-Carlton, Freija said.
"We want to see it happening as soon as possible," Freija said.

A mix of state, city and developer funds is expected to pay for the roundabouts, Freija said. Some of the money could come from new developer impact fees that the commission also approved Monday.

Currently, downtown developers are required to build road improvements such as turn lanes and traffic lights if their projects significantly increase traffic.

Under the new plan, developers will pay a fee the city will use to develop traffic plans for the downtown area.
City engineers have not decided how much developers will pay or what the money will be used for. That will be determined over the next few years, they said.

"We really don't have an identified program," Freija said.

In addition to the changes on U.S. 41, the plan calls for two single-lane roundabouts to be built on Ringling Boulevard in the next five years, at a cost to the city of about $4.3 million.

It also includes $10.1 million worth of improvements to city streets in an effort to alleviate traffic congestion at the intersection of U.S. 301 and Fruitville Road. The projects would be funded by the city and the state.
A proposal to build a new bus lane and two bus stations on Cocoanut Avenue is included in a $4.3 million plan to upgrade the bus transit system.

Members of the Central Cocoanut neighborhood association opposed the proposal that affects their street, and Servian and Commissioner Fredd Atkins voted against it.

Freija said the bus plan, which the city proposes be funded by Sarasota County, won't be final unless it's incorporated in the city's land-use plan, a process that could take two to three years.
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pb.../1270/NEWS0101



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Herald Tribune

County, developer make 2050 breakthrough
The Sarasota County-Lakewood Ranch deal would put 5,460 homes near University Parkway and I-75.

May 05. 2004

BY DALE WHITE

SARASOTA COUNTY -- After years of dissension and doubts over the Sarasota 2050 villages plan, county officials and a developer reached a breakthrough Tuesday that's expected to result in the county's first village being built at Lakewood Ranch.

Yet the word "village" may fall short of describing its impact. The proposed Villages of Lakewood Ranch would put 5,460 homes -- plus parks, shopping and other amenities -- on a highly visible, 3,460-acre tract southeast of the University Parkway and Interstate 75 interchange.

The community would be across the parkway from the 4,300-home and still-growing portion of Lakewood Ranch in neighboring Manatee County, and would open most of Lakewood Ranch's vast Sarasota County land holdings to extensive residential development.

Schroeder-Manatee Ranch, developer of Lakewood Ranch, has been aching for years to build on the lake-pocked land behind its still-growing office and commercial districts.

Currently, Sarasota County's zoning laws allow a subdivision of five-acre homes on the land.

The 2050 plan, however, enables some developers east of I-75 to put more homes on their now-rural land, if they build a village community geared to less affluent buyers and renters.

The village concept -- which emphasizes pedestrian access, common areas and mixed housing types -- is similar to the New Urbanist communities of Seaside in the Panhandle, Celebration at Disney World and Haile Plantation near Gainesville.

It has yet to be tried in Sarasota County, where it's been combined with a requirement that developers set aside land for conservation.

The 2050 plan designates two other areas for possible village sites: the Hi-Hat Ranch between Fruitville and Clark roads, and an area south of Clark Road owned mostly by Palmer Ranch.

Schroeder-Manatee, however, is the developer who has expressed the most interest in building a village. The company unveiled preliminary plans for the Villages of Lakewood Ranch nearly three years ago.

If 2050's development rules are finalized soon, Schroeder-Manatee expects to break ground in 2006.

"We're optimistic as to where things are headed," said Todd Pokrywa, vice president of planning.

Once construction starts, the village could take 20 or so years to build out.

The fight over growth

For three decades, the county has prohibited urban development east of a boundary that generally follows I-75. Yet political pressures to move or erase that urban boundary have increased.

The county commissioners regard the 2050 villages plan as a means of opening more rural land to growth without moving the boundary.

Rural developers cannot qualify to build villages without agreeing to 2050's many caveats, including land conservation measures that don't apply to typical subdivisions.

Yet the village option has led to rhetorical warfare between environmentalists and others who don't want urban development east of I-75.

Opponents of the plan say it will allow too much growth too fast. At the same time, 2050's development rules have become increasingly complex, prompting complaints from landowners and developers.

Two months ago, Schroeder-Manatee and the county appeared to be at a stalemate as to how to apply Sarasota 2050's rules to the thousands of acres sited for the Villages of Lakewood Ranch.

Schroeder-Manatee threatened to come up with its own village plan without using 2050 or possibly take its village ideas to Manatee County.

It looked as if the complicated growth strategy, which has cost the county $2 million so far and has gone through nearly three years of contentious review, might be shelved and unused.

SMR executives and Tim Jackson, the county's chief consultant on 2050, have been in a confidential huddle for weeks.

On Tuesday, the developer and consultant said they had resolved their biggest point of contention: how to make sure Schroeder-Manatee is allowed to build nearly 5,500 homes on the property.

Village developers qualify to build homes by transferring development rights off land they agree to keep as open space or as part of a "greenway" of trails and wilderness.

A developer can qualify to build up to two homes for each acre of preserved land.

In January, Schroeder-Manatee lost nearly 3,000 potential village homes when it sold the county the development rights on its 2,000-acre Gum Slough tract.

To make up for that loss, Jackson crunched numbers and came up with a method for Schroeder-Manatee to get 5,460 homes for its village.

The arrangement calls for Schroeder-Manatee to qualify for more homes because of its village's proximity to employment and other urban development.

It also is allowed to build more homes if it keeps 25 percent of its houses and apartments within a price range the county considers affordable for moderate-income families.

Schroeder-Manatee must transfer development rights off land it recently purchased from Myakka Ranch and agree to keep that land agricultural.

And it must buy back some development rights from the Gum Slough tract.

County Commissioner Jon Thaxton regarded the Gum Slough part of the pending deal as "a critical, fatal mistake."

He insisted that Schroeder-Manatee knew those development rights were necessary for its village. He argued that if the county sells some of those rights back to the developer, it will undermine the intent of the voter-approved Environmentally Sensitive Lands Protection Program.

Thaxton also contended that the value of those rights will go up when Sarasota 2050 is enacted and that taxpayers could end up shortchanged.

"We need to be looking at market value," Thaxton said.

Yet the other commissioners indicated they are willing to sell the Gum Slough rights back to Schroeder-Manatee, based on what the county paid in January.

"At this stage of the game, I think it is a good deal for the county," Commissioner David Mills said.

The commissioners will discuss the development rights issue, as well as other matters pertaining to 2050, with the public during a June 10 hearing.

[SkyDiveJunkee]

Here is a good article regarding Sarasota:

"Good Old Urbanism - part 3 - Sarasota, FL"

by Susan Bilenker


Continuing our exploration of examples of successful "old urbanism," existing communities that already manifest many of the principles of the New Urbanism.

Sarasota, a lush and quirky small city on Florida's Gulf Coast, is trying to use principles of New Urbanism to weave its various charming "old urbanism" districts into a cohesive live-work-culture-nature experience.

Blessed with a gorgeous location, nestled alongside the mid-Gulf Coast, an hour south of Tampa, protected by even more gorgeous barrier islands--here called "keys"--including Longboat Key, Lido Key, St Armands Key, Bird Key and Siesta Key--Sarasota is also the arts and culture capital of Florida.

In its very walkable and compact downtown, you'll find theatres, a beautiful opera house, a soaring modern library, a purple-painted waterfront concert hall, a municipal auditorium, upscale shops and restaurants, and many art galleries. A few blocks away, across the only scenic section of Tamiami Trail (Hwy 41), is the magnificent Sarasota Bayfront, lined each winter season with modern sculptures, and featuring a lovely tree-shaded walking path and park, impressive yachts, and two restaurants, one upscale and one of the sea-shack variety..

Several blocks south of Main Street, separated by a non-descript, pedestrian-indifferent office-building-zone, there is a charming antiques district along Pineapple and Orange Avenues, with restaurants and boutiques, an art movie house, and a neighborhood of artist studios offering monthly Friday night studio/gallery strolls.

Crossing Tamiami Trail and south a few blocks more, is the tiny retail crossroads called Southside Village, surrounded on one side by a lush neighborhood of old residental streets and on the other by the expansive Sarasota Memorial Hospital Center. Southside Village has been undergoing "upscaling" in recent years, and it's a delightful mix of lux gift shops, gourmet markets, restaurants featuring international cuisines, as well as cozy neighborhood bar-restaurants, bakery-cafes, hair salons and boutiques.

A few winding miles down the road is Siesta Drive, which crosses Sarasota Bay and winds through Siesta Key, a tropical paradise enlivened by Ocean Boulevard with its funky shops and restaurants, leading to an exquisite wide beach composed of soft, powdery white sand that is 99% crystal. Perfect for walking, swimming, sunning, parasailing, and sunset-watching and applauding, which is a nightly tradition on Siesta.

Heading northwest from downtown Sarasota, over a couple of short bridges, you enter the world-famous St Armands Circle retail district. It's a "circle" of short blocks that wrap around a park on St Armands Key. There is every kind of store and restaurant, as well as Lido Beach, a long and deep expanse of not-so-soft sand with unbroken vistas across the blue-green waters of the Gulf.

Over another couple of bridges and you're driving alongside the perfect lawns and landscaping of Gulf of Mexico Drive on Longboat Key, a golf-course- and luxury-high-rise-lined gold coast community with its own long strip of wild beach towards the north end. Cross another bridge and you're on lovely Anna Maria, a key of old houses and cute shops just north of Longboat and west of Bradenton.

All these bridges and keys, taken along with downtown proper, make Sarasota a diverting place to live. Within a few miles of any one spot is another with different views and amenities.

The urban design challenge for Sarasota is to connect at least a few of the downtown pedestrian districts with one another, so as to encourage walking and biking among them. Each district is charming, but one has to get into the car, drive, and find another parking space, in order to go from one to the other.

Another problem for retail and dining establishments in the area is the seasonality of their customers. It creates the odd phenomenon of a downtown filled with high rise luxury condominium apartment buildings and plenty of retail, yet lacking significant pedestrian street life. It's a very relaxing downtown compared to most, but not so healthy for the businesses trying to make a living there.

A step in the direction of trying to energize downtown Sarasota is the high-rise residential/retail complex, currently under construction, which will be anchored by a big Whole Foods supermarket. Local planners and the developer hope it will attract more full-time residents who want to enjoy the complete urban experience of walking--not only to culture and dining--but also to shop for basic everyday needs.

Looking beyond the downtown core, Sarasota is a city of neighborhoods characterized by houses of many design styles and eras, most of which are serviced by convenient local shopping plazas. The commercial spine that links all the Gulf Coast cities in this area is Tamiami Trail (Hwy 41), a six-lane shopping strip with every chain store and restaurant and car dealership one could ever need (or not need!). It's convenient and also frazzling at times. Luckily there are ways to get many of one's errands done while mostly bypassing or simply crossing it at critical spots.

What's amazing about this city is that, from moment to moment, you can choose to be in a sophisticated urban downtown, or walking a soul-expanding white powder beach and staring out into the vast emptiness of the gulf, or sailing your boat on the bay, or enjoying a quiet life in a nice little house with citrus trees in your backyard, or taking advantage of theater and restaurants, all within a few minutes drive of wherever you started.

Residential real estate values are predictably keeping up with these unique qualities, and they'e apparently rising about 15% per year. For baby boomers thinking about where to be next, either soon or in a few years when they retire or the last kid goes off to college, Sarasota has appeal. It's diverse in age--lots of young and middle-aged families, year round retirees, snowbirds, and singles of all ages. And it has an energy you can tap into if you're looking for things to do. It's also exceedingly laid back, requiring not much of anything if you want to kick back and enjoy gazing at seagulls and pelicans.

As with much of America these days, something is always under construction in Sarasota, and usually it's as big as the zoning will allow, and as high-priced as the market will bear. The days of a $20,000 beach cottage on Siesta Key are long-gone. But with some careful sleuthing, there are still good values to be found here, especially in older neighborhoods undergoing upgrading.

The City of Sarasota is in the process of integrating its newly adopted Downtown Master Plan--crafted with urban planning firm Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company--with its existing zoning codes, which will hopefully have the eventual effect of requiring new development to be consistent with principles of the New Urbanism. One question is whether the current policy of taking a reactive stance to new development projects, rather than proactively seeking desirable projects, will most effectively take the city where it wants to go.

One other convenient feature of Sarasota is its airport: small, modern, and underutilized. It's only a 15 to 20 minute drive to the airport from downtown Sarasota, and a short 2 1/2 hour flight to Newark Airport via Continental Airlines (one flight per day). Many travelers choose to fly into Tampa and take the 1 1/4 drive to Sarasota. The flight's cheaper, on airlines such as Jet Blue, which fly from JFK Airport in New York. But it's so easy and low key to arrive right in Sarasota, that for me it makes living here even more appealing. As soon as you're off the plane, you're "home."

(Where do you see yourself spending the next phase of your life? Staying put? Or venturing to a new place? If you've found any that are particularly appealing, let me know, for future chapters of "Good Old Urbanism." Email to Susan Bilenker at info@design-site.net. Thanks.)


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Susan Bilenker is Publisher of DesignSite. She spent many years involved with various aspects of architectural practice and most enjoys a daily life that maximizes walking and minimizes driving.

[renner01]

ringling square article....




Ringling Square gets its anchor

AmSouth Bank will be the lead tenant in the $10 million downtown office building.

BY JOHN HIELSCHER



SARASOTA -- An Alabama bank will anchor a $10 million office building that will begin construction this summer.

AmSouth Bank will be the lead tenant in Ringling Square, a five-story building on the southeast corner of Orange Avenue and Ringling Boulevard in downtown Sarasota.

The 98-year-old Wilson house was moved from the site last month to a future county park on Bee Ridge Road.

AmSouth will occupy the first two floors of the office building, said Doug Tibbetts, managing partner of developer Paradise Properties LLC.

"We are working with a number of prospects, but have no other firm leases at this point," he said.

While other downtown office projects are under way, such as the 16-story Plaza at Five Points, Tibbetts expects to have no trouble filling the space.

"Certainly there is going to be an increased demand for office space as the city dynamics change with all the new residential and retail and the other things planned for the downtown area," he said.

AmSouth will take 14,000 square feet of the 40,000-square-foot building.

The Montgomery, Ala.-based bank has been scouting for a downtown home to serve as a regional headquarters.

It expects to open late this month in a temporary office at Orange and Main Street, said spokeswoman Susan Lang.

"Ringling Square will be our permanent home," she said.

AmSouth has been aggressively expanding in the area. It opened four new branches in December in Sarasota and Manatee counties, giving it 10 in the region.

Paradise Properties spent more than a year assembling the 30,000-square-foot parcel from several property owners, Tibbetts said.

Each floor of the DSDG Inc.-designed Ringling Square will have its own "motor lobby," where people will drive to the level to park, he said.

The developer hopes to begin construction within 60 days and finish in the third quarter of 2005.

The company also developed Hillview Square, a five-tenant retail center at Osprey Avenue and Hillview Street, south of downtown Sarasota.

The developer hopes to begin construction within 60 days and finish in the third quarter of 2005.6-2-04

[renner01]

here is another project to start in a month or two ..

http://www.phillippilandings.com/default.htm

[renner01]

Perico Island project


Location: Bradenton, FL
Address: island lies between Perico Bayou and Anna Maria Sound and is bisected by State Road 64
Perico Island
Floors: 10
Job Status: Approved

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pb...=2004406100788

Developer: Arvida development

www.arvida.com/default.asp

Additional Info
IGH-RISES CAUSE HIGH TRAFFIC

Source: Vin Mannix, Herald Columnist
Mention the proposed Perico Island project and Don
Quixote, the fictitious 17th century idealistic hero,
comes to mind. Only instead of tilting at windmills,
he'd be tilting at high-rises.The planned Perico
Island high-rises, that is. It would appear they are
bound to happen, given the Bradenton Planning
Commission's green lighting the $300-million Arvida
development with Wednesday's 5-1 vote. You can bet
Mayor Wayne Poston and the City Council will do the
same in the coming
Arvida, the residential development arm of
Jacksonville-based The St. Joe Co., is trying to push
through a revised development proposal that would turn
352 acres on Perico Island into a community largely
for seasonal residents.
Based on its condo sales on Longboat Key, Arvida
calculates the $300,000 to $1-million condos will
largely attract seasonal residents, he said. The
bottom two floors of each high rise will be for
parking, with the condos above those floors.

Arvida is adamant that it needs 10-story buildings to
make the project marketable.


********************************************************
Views for sale

The county commissioners opposed the annexation of crop land on Perico Island into Bradenton and to developers' plans to build condo high-rises there at a height and density the county would not have permitted.

The county, the Island cities and environmentalists have been in a four-year legal fight with the city over that Arvida Co. project.

Arvida reduced the number of proposed condos. Yet it still wants buildings as high as 10 stories.

The county commissioners are not appeased. They have even threatened not to provide drinking water to the site, a tactic that a city planning commissioner called "extortion."

To Bradenton city officials, Perico Island is a suitable spot for Arvida's project. They argue that Arvida needs height to make it marketable.

That's because Arvida won't just be selling condos. It will be selling views of Anna Maria Sound and Tampa Bay.

The higher the condo, the better the view.



Promenade at River Walk Condos

Location: Brandenton, FL
Address: Near U.S. 41 on Manatee River
Floors: 8
Job Status: Construction



Developer: Related Group
General Contractor: Thomason - Steven LLCC,

[smiley]

For orientation: This is south of Downtown a ways.

[smiley]

Deal for Riviera Dunes
Four high-rise condos are planned for the Palmetto site


BY MICHAEL POLLICK MICHAEL.POLLICK@HERALDTRIBUNE.COM





PALMETTO -- A development group has purchased 32 acres at Riviera Dunes and plans to build four high-rise condominium towers and several storefronts there.

Three principal partners -- two Michigan investors and an executive at W.G. Mills Inc., a Manatee County-based construction company -- closed on the $8.6 million sale last week.

Riviera Dunes Boardwalk L.L.C., the seller, had marketed the site for years in an unsuccessful bid to attract a hotel, retailers and professionals.



"We think our (condo) project totally built out will sell for $140 million," said Tim Morris, one of the three principals.

The other two are Larry Lipa and Tim Vining, a vice president at W.G. Mills.

W.G. Mills will act as the project's construction manager. Lipa and Morris are principals of Corvus International, a Bloomfield Hills, Mich.,-based real estate development and financing firm.

Together the three have formed Bluewater Development Co. to focus on development projects in Southwest Florida.



The Riviera Dunes site is being acquired separately by a limited liability corporation called Riviera Dunes Development Partners.

The company plans to begin pre-sales of condominiums before the end of the year and to start construction early next year.

Each 12-story building will house 40 residential units and the condos will sell from $550,000. Penthouses will sell for "north of a million," Morris said.

The groundbreaking for the first building will be driven by pre-sales, Morris said. "We are thinking February-March of next year."



Riviera Dunes is a 288-acre commercial and residential project just north of the Manatee River and south of the Manatee Civic Center.

The project was started in 1999 and has already received state and city approvals for plans to create a "development of regional impact," or DRI.

So far it includes a 220-slip marina and restaurant, both owned by Mike Carter Construction of Bradenton, plus numerous upscale houses. First Dartmouth has built 96 of the planned 450 single-family homes ranging from $600,000 to $3 million each.



"Riviera Dunes continues to meet our highest expectations, and it goes without saying that we are very excited about the new ideas these developers have for the project," Palmetto Mayor Larry Bustle said in a statement.



Last modified: November 06. 2003 12:00AM
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/p...6/1200/BUSINESS

[smiley]

Article published Dec 7, 2003
ALONG THE RIVER

For years, the Manatee River divided Bradenton and Palmetto. Now the river could be binding the cities together thanks to some high-powered developers.

Their efforts in four or five years could yield a new swath of upscale housing, offices, and retail stores that revitalizes both cities.

Like neighboring car dealerships that benefit when in close proximity, Riviera Dunes in Palmetto and Bradenton's Promenade at Riverwalk could aid rather than hurt one another, even though the developments are only a mile apart and will compete for tenants and buyers.
"The synergy is absolutely there," says builder Mike Carter, who constructed Riviera Dunes' marina and has been involved in numerous renovation projects in downtown Bradenton. "You see it in other industries -- Burger King and McDonalds, Walgreens and Eckerds. I think we're seeing that on the Manatee River."

But the fact both projects are plowing ahead now after years of delays might be more the effect of a changing real estate market than a coordinated effort.
Plans for the two projects have changed drastically over the past couple of years. Once largely commercial in nature, both developments now are centered mostly around housing with a retail and office component.

The Promenade at Riverwalk, formerly known as the Sandpile and just north of downtown Bradenton, was supposed to include a movie theatre before Regal Cinemas declared bankruptcy.

And two years ago, Riviera Dunes was being marketed as a shopping and entertainment district akin to Miami's Cocowalk.
Developers say their change of heart stems from forces that favor waterfront housing.

"Obviously we had a good thing going at Riviera Dunes," says Frank S. Maggio, chief executive of St. Petersburg-based homebuilder First Dartmouth.

Maggio's company had sold close to 100 houses at Riviera Dunes when he got city approval in March 2000 to build 210 upscale condominiums in partnership with Opus South Development LLC.

The $110 million project, dubbed Laguna at Riviera Dunes, will sell units from $350,000 to more than $1 million for one of four penthouses.
Just north of Laguna, Bluewater Development Co. is proposing a similar project: Four 12-story buildings with 40 condos in each ranging from $550,000 to more than $1 million.

Maggio says waterfront real estate is fast disappearing, which makes the Manatee River a hot destination even when the housing trends seem to favor areas near Interstate 75, University Parkway, and State Road 70.

"There's no cost-effective housing on the water left in St. Pete, Tampa, or Sarasota," says Maggio. "That's why people are coming down here."
South of the river
The Promenade at Riverwalk will offer buyers a lower-cost alternative to Riviera Dunes' condos.

Developers have already constructed 216 apartments east of the Sandpile. Plans call for six additional buildings south of the Rossi riverfront park to house offices, restaurants, shops, and 350 condominiums from $250,000 to $550,000 each.

Ground was broken three weeks ago at the Promenade at Riverwalk for a 115-unit condominium building. About a week later, work started at Maggio's Laguna development.
"I think it's not a coincidence these projects are going on at the same time. It's more of a confluence of energy. I think both sides are recognizing that the time is now for these downtown developments," said Edward Vogler II, a lawyer and partner in Bradenton Riverfront Partners, the Sandpile's developer.
One factor separating the developments is pricing.
Maggio, whose Laguna development is gated and does not include a commercial element, said he believes luxury condo buyers will be willing to spend about $400,000 in this market.

Bluewater Development's project will eclipse that amount by about $150,000. Condos at the Promenade at Riverwalk will sell for $250,000 to $550,000.

Dennis Bradford, one of the developers of Riviera Dunes, said the different price points will help buyers sort out their choices, but marketing also could play a role.
Riviera Dunes is pressing its boating-resort theme. Across the river, the Promenade at Riverwalk is trying to sell a marriage between river views and downtown living.

Those and other differences make the two projects distinctive enough for buyers, said Bradford.

"We don't think either development will hurt the other," he said, adding, "If anything, we think they will complement each other."

Both sides maintain the scores of condos, shops, and offices will drive the market and lure more buyers. But that's not to say the sides won't be competing in every case.
Maggio said timing and whims of the fickle housing market could play big parts in determining which project attracts the most buyers.

Maggio's project is smaller than Riverwalk's, it's gated, and it's well ahead of Bluewater, which is supposed to break ground sometime next year. In that sense, he says, Laguna has a big advantage.

But the Bluewater and Promenade projects include commercial components that could appeal to a segment of the housing market not targeted by Maggio: buyers seeking a resort- and downtown-living lifestyle.
"I think there will be some competition, but their prices are a lot higher and their amenity package is not as good as ours," says Vogler, referring to Maggio's project.

"There is a category of people out there that will not aspire to live in a relatively urban enviroment, … but I also know there are people who will be attracted to downtown Bradenton because they want to have those amenities close by.

"Research shows there's a huge number that want that mixed-use lifestyle," he said.
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/p...8/1002/NEWS0101

[smiley]

'Just 23 minutes away'
Palmetto touts itself in ads as a central location in Tampa Bay


BY SELINA ROMÁN





ST. PETERSBURG -- For about seven seconds, motorists traveling along Interstate 275 see a Web address, www.23minutes.com.

The Web site features a movie. The presentation begins with sentences sweeping across a Manatee River sunset with downtown Bradenton as the backdrop.

"You've worked, and waited, your whole life. And now your dream is just … 23 minutes away from downtown St. Petersburg."

Those who explore the Web site discover that Palmetto's Riviera Dunes is near their jobs and major cities like Sarasota, St. Petersburg and Tampa.



The site is designed to sell new, multimillion-dollar condominiums at the upscale development on the Manatee River.

At the same time, it signals a movement to change Palmetto's image, tout its central location and make it a major player in the region's housing market.

"Palmetto is where you were when you were going somewhere else," said Frank S. Maggio, chief executive of First Dartmouth, a St. Petersburg-based builder with the Laguna at Riviera Dunes project. "Now it's going to be where you want to go. Period."



Tom Eleazer, director of marketing, worked with Maggio to come up with the billboards and other ads touting Palmetto as a place where people can live a million-dollar lifestyle for slightly less.

Eleazer said he expects the company to spend about $33,000 a year on the boards. The current board has about a week left until it is switched with the next image that will show the condominiums, the logo, a phone number and the Web address.

About 49,000 drivers a day pass the billboard, partially hidden behind a building, at the edge of the interstate's downtown interchange.



"It needed something that made people go 'Huh?' " Eleazer said.

Besides the boards and the Internet site, they've also run ads in the St. Petersburg Times.

New north river developments in and near Palmetto and Ellenton draw residents from St. Petersburg who wanted to flee the sprawl and traffic, yet be close to their jobs and families.

Construction began in November on the five seven-story, 42-unit condominium buildings. Laguna at Riviera Dunes is part of the Riviera Dunes project in Palmetto that includes upscale homes, a marina and a yacht club.



Maggio said he has sold about 26 condos totaling about $13 million.

Tanya Lukowiak, director of the city's Community Redevelopment Agency, said property taxes on the Riviera Dunes property were $14,500 in 1985. Now, some of the homes in the subdivision fetch as much as $19,000 in taxes each.

Lukowiak said the billboard for Riviera Dunes benefits the city as much as it does the development.

"It's good for us personally because it is in fact opening up the eyes of people in St. Pete and Tampa who will say, 'Wow, it really is only 23 minutes away,'" Lukowiak said. "It really does plant a whole different message."



Even Lukowiak's agency has gotten in on the billboard game. The Palmetto CRA, an arm of the city, has its own sign on Riviera Dunes property off U.S. 301.

The signs tell the public "The truth about Palmetto," such its average age, 38, and that it's Tampa Bay's fastest-growing community.

It's all an effort to get the city on people's minds and change their perceptions of it if only for a few seconds, Lukowiak said.

"What we really want to do is have those people passing through to kind of rethink their perception," she said.



Last modified: January 12. 2004 12:00AM
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/p...4/1002/NEWS0101

Laguna at Riviera Dunes



Unfortunately, not too urban


But it is more than Palmetto had before, so I guess I'll take it.

[smiley]

And thank God, something nice for Bradenton near downtown. Maybe it will kick start the place.

[Jasonhouse]

6 eight story condos? Not too shabby, though it's very auto dependent and all of that. Still, I woudl rather have a development where 200 units (or whatever it is) takes up 10 acres, instead of 100 acres.

[Jahi98]

Lot's going on. Could Sarasota be a mirror of Boca Raton on the Florida west coast?

[smiley]

I think you have it backwards . . .

Article published Jul 8, 2004
Downtown condo rush stirring

By Rich Shopes

SARASOTA -- Harry and Phyllis Shapiro planned to divide their retirement between Southwest Florida and St. Louis, but after a few months here they've started wondering why they should leave at all.

The Shapiros looked at waterfront houses but didn't want the upkeep. They looked at Longboat Key "but the beach is kind of boring," said Harry Shapiro, a retired scrap metal dealer.

They settled on a small condominium at Sarabande on Palm Avenue in downtown Sarasota. In March, they moved to a bigger place at the Ritz Tower Residences.

The Shapiros are among the first prospectors in a condo gold rush that will reshape Sarasota's skyline, traffic patterns and retail scene for years to come.

Twenty-nine condo developments are targeted for downtown Sarasota over the next six years. They promise to lure about 5,000 mostly retirees, semi-retirees, speculators and 40- and 50-somethings.

Real estate brokers say most newcomers will be like the Shapiros, aiming for luxury and convenience and able to afford both. They're streaming in from the Midwest and the Northeast, visitors who decided to cash in on the real estate boom.

"We wanted to be snowbirds, but the more we were here the more we liked it," said Shapiro, 61.

The Ritz-Carlton's luxury units launched the condo land grab, brokers say.

Before the Ritz, most condo buyers headed to Siesta and Longboat keys, even though they ended up commuting to downtown restaurants and theaters.

Now many are heading directly there.

"They're buying because they want the urban lifestyle and it doesn't matter so much if they have a view of the beach," says Eileen Lyle, who heads condo sales at Sarasota-based Michael Saunders & Co.

Countywide, 583 top-end condos -- priced at more than $1.5 million -- were listed in the Sarasota market during the past two years. Of those, 107 are for sale now and about a third are in downtown Sarasota.

The costliest, a penthouse at 888 Condo on the Bay, just behind the Ritz Towers, lists for $6.9 million.

City planners estimate that another 2,400 units are under construction or being planned in the city's 420-acre downtown.

Twenty-nine of the 33 active and planned projects in Sarasota, Siesta Key, Longboat Key and Lido Key are condo buildings.

Eighteen of those will sell units for more than $700,000. The Tower Residences, Beau Ciel, The Metropolitan and six other existing or proposed residences don't offer units for less than $1 million.

At The Metropolitan, a $100 million, 18-story condo development proposed at Gulf Stream Avenue and U.S. 41, prices start at $1.8 million. A block north at the Ritz's Tower Residences, they start at $1.75 million.

The new wave

Not everybody eyeing downtown Sarasota is wealthy, but if they are not, they come close.

"It's a stretch for a young couple," said Lyle, who adds that most new buyers are like the Shapiros -- well-heeled retirees or semi-retirees who are active and want to walk or bike to shops, restaurants and theaters.

Then there are folks like Alice Rau, a 77-year-old grandmother and heir to a small Michigan newspaper, the Grand Haven Tribune.

She moved to Siesta Key 25 years ago, and now she wants to trade her laid-back lifestyle on the Intracoastal Waterway for a busier one at the Plaza at Five Points, where prices start at $553,000.

"After season, it's kind of empty around here," said Rau, a widow who's moving to the plaza's 12th floor when the project is completed next year. "All the locals moving are from the keys or out east, like Lakewood Ranch."

Rau is among the new wave of downtown boosters. She likes its broadening popularity and proximity to shops, restaurants and theaters. She serves on the boards of the Salvation Army and Ringling Museum of Art and has long been involved in civic causes.

But at the same time, she's concerned that too much growth will entice retail chains to overtake locally owned ones, and threaten the very charm that enticed her to move downtown.

"It's the variety that attracts me and that's what makes for a healthy community," she said.

Investment opportunities attracted Joe Cirulli. The 50-year-old owner of a chain of fitness clubs, Cirulli bought four units, about $3.3 million worth, at Five Points this past year.

He launched his business, Gainesville Health and Fitness Club, in the 1970s when he was 24. He traveled to Southwest Florida's beaches for years and bought a condo on Bradenton Beach. When he started looking at waterfront condos as an investment, escalating prices convinced him to look downtown.

"When I looked at how much (waterfront condos) had appreciated, I couldn't afford them. They're five times what my unit costs now," said Cirulli, who plans to keep one and sell the other three units. "I come down to Sarasota all the time. And this had the best location."

For investment purposes, Cirulli opted not to buy any of the project's $1.8 million penthouses. "I figured they'd be harder to turn over."

John Harshman, who sells commercial real estate, said the city's retail scene can't help but be influenced by folks like Cirulli, Rau and the Shapiros, despite their desires to see the downtown unchanged.

"Retail follows the rooftops," Harshman said. "I see Main Street's appearance changing significantly and many of those stores there now will not be there.

"It's really hard to place a national retailer in a downtown, but a year and a half to two years from now when a lot of these projects are completed, some of those retailers will be moving to the downtown."

Retail concerns

That concerns not just new buyers, like Rau, but also John Tylee, president of the Downtown Partnership, a civic association that's pushing for diverse development.

Tylee sees too much emphasis on high-end units that could squeeze out middle-class buyers, artists and some existing businesses.

"A vibrant downtown should be for everybody, with all ethnic groups, all ages and all income levels," he said.

Too many high-end condos could mean a glut of premium shops catering to the affluent. On the bright side, Tylee is hopeful the high-end units signify to investors Sarasota's economic strength and entice more builders.

He just hopes that some of those builders target middleclass buyers. So far, that's a longshot. Only a handful are doing that now.

Among the projects offering units at less than $300,000 are Alinari at U.S. 41 and Boulevard of the Arts and the Sarasota Main Street Apartments. Units at 100 Central, the site of the Whole Foods supermarket, will start at $300,000.

"What I believe is the most important part missing from the downtown is relatively high density and affordable year-round housing," Tylee said. "That is why part of our work is to call for increases in densities in some of the areas on the edges of the down-town."

That perceived high-end push could already be forcing out some buyers, even those affluent enough to afford the units.

It's one reason Marjorie Martini and her husband opted to buy a unit at the Promenade at Riverwalk in downtown Bradenton.

When it's complete, her 1,520-square-foot unit will have a balcony and overlook the Manatee River.

The Martinis, who now live in Mote Ranch in Sarasota, paid $314,000 for it. A comparable unit at the Renaissance, which they looked at, cost $400,000 and ran 1,100 to 1,200 square feet.

"We found that for what we got, it just didn't make sense," Marjorie Martini said.

Not every new condo buyer eyeing Sarasota is strictly value-oriented.

Most cite Sarasota's charm as a major factor for heading downtown. That is one reason developers market their projects to affluent Northeasterners and Midwesterners who see the city's core as a big selling point that will only boost their investment.

Richard Zipes, the developer of the lavish 128-unit Metropolitan, says most high-end developers are targeting markets such as New York, Chicago and Detroit. They are attracting buyers who might consider a place in Naples, but not many who are looking for something more fast-paced, such as Miami.

"There is a very distinct difference between the two," Zipes said of Sarasota and Miami. "People who move here are not interested in the hip hop, the nightclubs and everything else in Miami.

"That's why personally I think there will be a change. People don't want to go to Dade anymore. It's too congested," Zipes said. "And that's what makes Sarasota attractive."

That also is why, brokers say, most new buyers in Southwest Florida tend to be in their 50s and 60s -- though some exceptions spring up.

One of those is former New Yorker Tom Esposito, a 37-year-old investment banker at Bank of America.

Esposito worked at IBJ Whitehall Financial Group in New York. After 9/11 Esposito lost his job and two months later, he moved to Sarasota, where his parents live.

His father wanted him to move out to Longboat Key, but Esposito missed the hubbub of the city.

That was one reason he bought a $632,000 unit at Five Points, which he considers the heart of the downtown.

"A lot of people I have met here are older, but that's OK. I like living downtown. There is so much going on here.

"My parents live on Longboat, and it's nice that they have that outlet, but I don't really need the beach every day, or every night."
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pb...407080458/1200

[renner01]

this could also impact the laguna project also.......since laguna's developers want to increase the height


Article published May 30, 2004
Building heights spark conflicts
The county, Palmetto and Bradenton all differ on the desirability of high-rises on their shorelines.

By DALE WHITE and SELINA ROMÁN STAFF WRITERS

MANATEE COUNTY -- As real estate prices escalate, developers are pushing to build higher and denser on the most valuable property of all -- the county's waterfront.

The movement toward more and taller waterfront high-rises has pitted county against city, and sometimes city against city. It's even instigated some rivalry among developers.

This summer, Manatee County and the cities of Bradenton and Palmetto will make decisions that could set precedents for how they manage growth on their shorelines.

Yet their visions often conflict. Although they've sworn in the past to engage in more joint planning, they aren't reaching any consensus on this issue -- which has already triggered annexation disputes and some litigation.

That's because their motives differ.

Palmetto wants to revamp its image into an upscale destination for the martini set.

Bradenton, also anxious to expand its tax base, believes height equals marketability.

The county, which has the most untouched shoreline in its jurisdiction, wants to keep urban densities from intruding into the suburbs and overtaking the mainland's skyline.

Environmentalists, city officials and county officials generally agree on one point, though: If Manatee is to see more high-rises, an appropriate location should be the county's "urban core" -- where there are already streets, sea walls and city services.

"You don't see mangroves in the middle of the urban area," said Joan Perry of the environmental group ManaSota-88.

Yet there's no consensus about what is the "urban core" and how high is too high there.

How these neighboring jurisdictions manage and react to each others' decisions about where high-rises can be built and just how high they can go will determine how the county's landscape is altered for many years to come.

The 'norm' for the bayfront

Manatee is overwhelmingly a community of single-story, single-family houses. Yet residential high-rises aren't new here, especially where there's a water view.

The 13-story DeSoto Towers on Ware's Creek dates back to 1970. Bradenton's riverfront has three condo complexes built between 1972 and 1981 that range from five to eight stories. In the mid-1980s, Palmetto approved the seven-floor Regatta Pointe on its riverfront and a six-floor condo overlooking Terra Ceia Bay.

"There's nothing wrong with height," said Frank Maggio, a high-rise developer in Palmetto's Riviera Dunes. "It's elegant and brings a level of sophistication to the area."

Yet some worry that, no matter how architecturally stylish any single high-rise may be, a proliferation of high-rises could scar Manatee's coastline -- much of which is still heavily fringed with mangroves and estuaries.

"People don't go to Pinellas County to fish," Perry said. "They come to our coast. There's a huge difference (between Pinellas' and Manatee's shorelines)."

A trend of high-rise developments could convert Manatee's coastline into a seemingly endless "wall" of structures, Perry said. "There ought to be some balance here."

Manatee County Commissioner Ron Getman's district includes a 2.5-mile stretch of still-undeveloped shoreline on Sarasota Bay, including a site where SBC Developments wants to build condos.

Getman and other commissioners told SBC last week that its plan, which called for buildings with up to six floors, must be scaled down.

"Whatever we allow for this particular venture will become the norm" for the rest of the bayfront, Getman said.

His constituents say they don't want Manatee to "become another Fort Lauderdale, with high-rises completely lining the coast and a lot of traffic congestion," Getman said.

"We will ruin the vista of Manatee County and what people came here to be a part of or escaped the east coast of Florida to get away from."

Getman said the commissioners objected to high-rises on land that SBC is now leasing to a gladiola farm because the site is in the "suburban fringe."

For that same reason, they have clashed with the city of Bradenton about a high-rise proposal in its domain.

Views for sale

The county commissioners opposed the annexation of crop land on Perico Island into Bradenton and to developers' plans to build condo high-rises there at a height and density the county would not have permitted.

The county, the Island cities and environmentalists have been in a four-year legal fight with the city over that Arvida Co. project.

Arvida reduced the number of proposed condos. Yet it still wants buildings as high as 10 stories.

The county commissioners are not appeased. They have even threatened not to provide drinking water to the site, a tactic that a city planning commissioner called "extortion."

To Bradenton city officials, Perico Island is a suitable spot for Arvida's project. They argue that Arvida needs height to make it marketable.

That's because Arvida won't just be selling condos. It will be selling views of Anna Maria Sound and Tampa Bay.

The higher the condo, the better the view.

Construction may be under way soon on the eight-story Promenade condominiums beside downtown Bradenton's Rossi Waterfront Park.

And developers will be coming forward with a proposed residential, retail and office complex for the former city hall site on Ware's Creek. Its height hasn't been determined.

Bill Theroux, director of the Bradenton Downtown Development Authority, believes new high-rises are crucial to that downtown's revival and survival, if it is to become a place to live and play.

They'll attract new residents to an area where the city already has utilities and infrastructure, boost the city's tax base and offer an alternative to suburban sprawl.

Bradenton doesn't have a rigid height restriction for buildings, Theroux said. "We're more concerned about compatibility, the style and the design."

Palmetto, also anxious to grow, is just as flexible.

But it's growing so fast that it now must make some hard decisions regarding just how far to extend its "urban core" along its waterfront and just how high developers will be allowed build there.

Palmetto's growing Riviera Dunes development, on the city's eastern edge, will include several waterfront high-rises.

A height battle is brewing there as one condo developer wants to go higher than its neighbor.

Developers of Bel Mare want to build three 15-story high-rises instead of the four 12-story buildings originally planned. Although Palmetto's council members haven't voted on the change, they're inclined to accept one less building for more open space.

Bel Mare salespeople have taken reservations for the penthouses and upper-floor condos, even though the developer hasn't received approval to build them.

Developers for another condominium tower at Riviera Dunes, Laguna, say that if the city lets Bel Mare go higher they want to go just as high.

Maggio, of First Dartmouth Homes, said he originally wanted to build Laguna at 12 floors, but city planners wanted the buildings at seven and he abided by their requests.

"We have the right to change our site plans," Maggio said. "We are very seriously considering having to stay competitive with our neighbors."

Timothy Vining -- principal with Corvus International, Bel Mare's developer -- said the City Council may vote on Bel Mare's revised plans soon. Construction could begin in August.

For Palmetto Mayor Larry Bustle, adding three floors to Bel Mare's plan isn't a drastic decision. Still, he and other elected officials have to strike a "balance."

"My feeling is we're trying to get a happy balance of the competing demands -- what a developer wants to do, gorgeous views of the bay and river, and with demand to preserve green space and keep density reasonable."


Timothy Vining -- principal with Corvus International, Bel Mare's developer -- said the City Council may vote on Bel Mare's revised plans soon. Construction could begin in August.


W.G. Mills, Inc.'s new plans for Bel Mare include three, 15-story condo buildings instead of four, 12-story condo buildings, pending approval.

[renner01]

laguna location
http://rivieradunes.com/laguna/image...view_large.jpg

[smiley]

PLEASE PUT THE URL with the ARTICLE so we can find it. Thanks.

[smiley]

Posted on Wed, Jun. 16, 2004




OFFICE-BUILDING PROPOSAL


Planners to review Sandpile project

TIM W. McCANN

Herald Staff Writer


BRADENTON - The famous Sandpile continues to attract development, the latest being a proposal for an $8 million, 41,400-square-foot office building located at a vital city gateway.

The site plan for Riverwalk Professional Park goes before the Bradenton Planning Commission at 2 p.m. today. The Bradenton City Council is expected to review and take action on the project July 14.

Located at the northwest corner of the new Third Avenue West and First Street/U.S. 41, the two Mediterranean-style buildings of 20,700 square feet each will sit just off U.S. 301/41 and next door to 252 upscale apartments. The proposed two-story buildings incorporate the appearance of the Mainstreet at Bradenton apartments.

City and downtown officials praised the proposed project for its appearance and ingenuity.

Mayor Wayne Poston said office buildings near residences is what the city wants downtown. Redevelopment experts tout mixes of residential, commercial and office uses as a trend in downtown redevelopment.

Bill Theroux, executive director of the Downtown Development Authority, said developer Bernard Croghan "has a very successful track record of doing his due diligence before he invests the capital," and Theroux expects the development to succeed.

"It's heavily landscaped," Theroux said of the site plan. "It's a very attractive front."

The site of the proposed office park is part of the original 65-acre Sandpile dredged from the Manatee River in 1968. Nowadays, most consider the term "Sandpile" as referring to the 27 acres leased from the city by developers Bradenton Riverfront Partners in January 1999.

The developers plan to build upscale homes, shops, restaurants, pubs, office buildings, a park and more. They built the Mainstreet apartments east of the railroad tracks that cut through the Sandpile and construction on the west side is scheduled to begin in July.

If approved by city council, construction on Riverwalk Professional Park is expected to begin in September and last about one year. Croghan told the Herald in May that plans call for office units ranging from 2,500 to 5,000 square feet, although buyers will be able to combine units. He could not be reached late Tuesday for an update.

The project site is roughly 4.8 acres. The site is behind the Herald building and contains two entrance/exit ramps for U.S. 301/41 abandoned when the city completed the extension of Third Avenue West to U.S. 301/41.

IF YOU GO

• WHAT: Bradenton Planning Commission meeting

• WHEN: 2 p.m. today

• WHERE: City Centre Council Chambers, 101 Old Main St.


http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradent...ss/8932364.htm