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Knee deep in condo projects

Planners are inundated with 11 proposals for Clearwater Beach - eight in the final hour - on the last day before tougher rules kick in.

By AARON SHAROCKMAN
Published July 2, 2005

CLEARWATER - The boxes of architectural drawings and engineering studies stretched around cubicles, down a hallway and back. Some stacked three high. Others invaded work space.

Friday was the peak of the Clearwater Beach development crush.

And by noon, plans for 385 condominium units had thudded on the planning department's floor.

"I'm surprised I can even make it down the hallway," said Jayne Sears, a Clearwater legal assistant, maneuvering through the clutter.

In all, 11 new condominium projects were proposed in buildings that on average would be 80 feet tall. Venetian Sands proposed four units in an 80-foot-tall, $5-million tower. Sienna Sands would squeeze 100 units into a $124-million building replacing the Red Roof Inn.

Each project would take away motel rooms. Gone would be the 10-unit Nicky Motel on Poinsettia Avenue along with the 24-unit Sunrise. The Kolibree, the Ebb Tide, the Gem Tower, the Cavalier, the Presti and the Bel Crest would disappear as well. In 11 projects, 500 motel rooms would be gone.

The final rush was instigated by the city, which is changing the way it turns motel rooms into condominiums, making the transition tougher.

Noon Friday was the cutoff for developers to slip in under the old rules.

And many waited until the last hour.

Engineers and architects lugged box after box up 26 steps, stomping past a Roger Bansemer painting as sweat started to streak their tired faces.

Richard Gillett hauled the plans for Sienna Sands, a 95-foot-tall condominium proposed for touristy S Gulfview Boulevard. The Sarasota architect had been up all night finishing his work.

He pulled in with his boxes at about 11 a.m., with an hour to spare.

Gillett was headed to North Carolina today "to recoup," he said.

"We always do a high volume," said Gillett, the architect of Belle Harbor and Mandalay Beach Club, among others. "But this ... this is intense."

The proposals submitted intensify development on a beach already bulging with projects. They will also continue the transformation toward a more lavish, upscale destination.

Plans for Uday Lele's 90-unit Enchantment include individual private elevators for each unit and a 60-foot-wide, 68-foot-tall portico that shoots through the middle of the rounded, undulating building.

Lele, the only developer among those in the crush to submit his beach project Thursday, said he'll provide unit owners with a chauffeured Lincoln Town Car eight times in its first year. He'll also stock Enchantment's members-only champagne room with free bubbly for a year.

"I don't think our team could have put together anything better," Lele said of his project. "This is excellent."

One condominium building inspired by Villa Medici would replace a 2-story concrete block hotel, architects said. Units in the Spanish Mission-style Laguna on Bay Esplanade would cost more than $600,000 on average, according to the developer.

Playa Del Sol Resort on South Beach's Bayway Boulevard would include a restaurant and retail space, along with condominiums as large as 6,000 square feet.

Plans for the projects overtook the planning department offices on Myrtle Avenue, and specifically, Sherry Watkins' desk.

An administrative analyst, Watkins checks the developments into the city's system. Citywide, there were 40 applications filed by the deadline, the most anyone in the department remembered in a single month.

And as more papers shuffled around her pod, finding a spot to stand became difficult. Other city employees gingerly stopped by, offering help in a pinch.

The stacks kept growing.

"I feel like I'm in an igloo," said Watkins.

From 11 a.m. until noon - the last hour projects would be accepted - eight of the 11 beach projects filtered in.

People jammed inside, paid their $1,200 filing fees and left.

By 11:55 a.m., the queue had emptied.

The developers and architects and engineers had left.

Watkins, without much of a place to stand near her desk, went for a walk.

--Aaron Sharockman can be reached at 727 445-4160 or asharockman@sptimes.com

[Last modified July 2, 2005, 01:21:22]