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Condos proposed atop parking garage

If approved, the builder would add 37 homes to a 300-space garage planned for the beach. The city would contribute to the cost of the parking facility.

More parking and a new condo might be in the works for Clearwater Beach.

Developer Louie Anastasopoulos, who owns Pelican Walk on the beach, is delaying plans to build a three-story parking garage because he plans to add a four-story condo to his parking lot plans.

This new plan would have to go through the city's lengthy approval process. But if given the nod, the 37-unit structure would sit atop the parking garage, as is common in many urban areas where land is at a premium. The garage would still have 300 spaces and the city of Clearwater would still finance 100 of those spaces.

"We have the density to do it and we might as well use it," said Anastasopoulos. "It's not going to be delayed a lot. We are looking at the end of this year to start."

The parking lot issue, by itself, was on Thursday night's council meeting agenda. Anastasopoulos had planned to ask the city to give him until 2005 to start construction on the lot. In turn, the city was going to recommend a starting date of December 2004.

Now that an upscale condo community might enter the picture, City Council members decided to hold off on voting on the agenda item until the city's next meeting in June.

"This would be exactly the same deal - 300 spaces open to the public on first-come, first-served basis," said Assistant City Manager Ralph Stone. "The city contribution would remain the same."

It's cheaper for the city to piggyback off of Anastasopoulos' construction, Stone said, because that way they don't have to buy land. Clearwater plans to give $1.45-million to the $4.5-million garage project. Currently, it is unclear how much it would cost to build or buy the additional condo units.

The potential garage is looked at as a positive move for the beach, which suffers from a lack of parking spaces for roughly half the year. However, this lot will not be directly on the beach. If approved, it would rise on the east side of Pelican Walk on Poinsettia Avenue, just south of Baymont Street.

"We're disappointed that the time frame is slipping, but I think the opportunity to get some additional residential there will both help him and add to the people out along the Mandalay corridor," said Stone.