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Big hotels? First, road study

Clearwater wants to make sure the roads can handle traffic from the bigger hotels.

By MIKE DONILA, Times Staff Writer
Published November 13, 2007

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CLEARWATER - Before city leaders clear the way for developers to build bigger hotels, they want to know just how much traffic the added rooms will create on the already congested beach.

The city this week is expected to sign a contract that pays DKS Associates, a Tampa engineering and consulting firm, about $31,000 to conduct an analysis to determine whether the beach's roadways have enough capacity to support additional traffic.

The company will look at thoroughfares along Sand Key, the south beach, part of the north beach and the Memorial Causeway, according to city documents. Engineers will look at traffic effects based on maximum buildout to determine the threshold of development the roads can support.

Earlier this year, Pinellas County commissioners signed off on a plan to let developers build 50 to 150 percent more hotel rooms per acre, depending on the site's size.

Officials say the move would help tourism by boosting overnight accommodations in a county that has lost roughly 5,000 of its 40,000 rental rooms in four years, many on the beach.

Officials say the ordinance could make beachfront hotel development more appealing to developers. In the past, it has been more lucrative to build condominiums than hotels. For example, on Clearwater Beach, where existing regulations allow developers to build up to 50 hotel rooms or 30 condos per acre, one condo has the same market value as about six hotel rooms.

"This will help provide a lot more opportunities for the hotel (industry), especially on the beach where there's a greater need," said Beth Coleman, president and CEO of the Clearwater Regional Chamber of Commerce. "It gives the existing buildings more options, but it also brings in more tourists who are going to help the local businesses as well."

The plan still needs the approval of each Pinellas municipality to go into effect in that particular city or town. Individual municipalities would have the option of enacting more restrictive standards.

Before Clearwater can sign off on the plan, the state Department of Community Affairs wants to look at a traffic study, Mayor Frank Hibbard said. State officials are particularly interested in how new development could affect the city's evacuation plans.

Hibbard, though, said he doesn't expect a problem. The City Council should get a copy of the analysis by the end of December or early January. Officials with DKS Associates did not return calls seeking comment.

If the state approves the analysis, then city leaders could approve the county's plan to increase hotel density within the following months.

"Different types of hotels are going to have different traffic impacts," Hibbard said. "The resort hotels will have less because they have shuttles that go from the airport to the hotel, but with the mom and pops, you have more people renting cars."

Hibbard said it's critical for the economical health of the region to begin replacing hotels along Clearwater Beach.

Thousands of beach rooms in the past few years have disappeared to make way for big condo development.

"I'm sorry that this is such a hurry-up-and-wait situation, but I don't foresee any red flags," said Sheila Cole, executive director of the Clearwater Beach Chamber of Commerce, pointing out that the city has recently added more lanes along the popular Coronado Drive to accommodate additional traffic.

[Last modified November 12, 2007, 21:52:47]