Northpinellas: Innovative ideas may rescue Clearwater Beach

After months of talking about it, Clearwater's city commissioners Thursday took the first of two votes required to approve Beach by Design, a 64-page guide to remaking the tourist areas of Clearwater Beach.

The vote was enthusiastically unanimous in favor of the plan. The second vote, scheduled for Feb. 15, also is likely to be unanimous.

That is a feat in itself, since Beach by Design proposes some things that are cutting edge in Florida, and Clearwater lately has not seemed a cutting edge kind of place.

For example, the plan aims to spur construction of tony resorts on Clearwater Beach by dangling in front of resort hotel developers a gift of up to 600 more rooms or units than they could build under current regulations. The plan hasn't even been fully approved yet and already three groups of developers are lined up at City Hall, salivating for a share of the unit pool.

The plan proposes to open three areas of the beach to a limited number of buildings as tall as 150 feet. That's way taller than people are used to seeing on low-slung Clearwater Beach.

The plan also calls for hundreds of parking spaces built right on the beach to be ripped up and moved into nearby parking garages.

Some people who have heard about Beach by Design, written by consultant Charlie Siemon, have said this: "Are you nuts?"

This is Clearwater Beach, they say, where traffic backs up to the mainland on sunny weekends because so many people are trying to get onto the beach. Why would you build a bunch of hotel rooms and bring more people?

This is Clearwater Beach, they say, where at peak times motorists can circle for hours without finding a parking space and many of those hunting for spaces are families loaded down with children, beach chairs, coolers and sand toys. Why would the city remove any parking spaces, especially to relocate them in a parking garage that is more distant from the water?

This is Clearwater Beach, they say, where there are so many buildings that motorists can get a good look at the gulf only in a couple of places. Why would you adopt a plan that would promote construction of new buildings, and big, tall ones at that?

People who support Beach by Design would respond that the city has no choice. Clearwater has one of the best sand beaches in the country, but the upland part of the island is aging badly. No nice hotels have been built on the beach in years. Many small motels are in disrepair and some have converted to long-term rentals because they can't attract tourists. The streets are inadequate, the sidewalks are a mess, there is little landscaping, and too many storefronts are empty or filled with tacky merchandise. Yet tourism is supposed to be Clearwater's No. 1 industry.

"What's the relative value of Clearwater Beach?" Clearwater Planning Director Ralph Stone asked in a recent interview. "It's a regional resource. If we can't make the beach work and preserve our tax base there, we're in big trouble."

David Healey, executive director of the Pinellas Planning Council and probably the county's most authoritative voice on planning, wasn't involved in writing Beach by Design and hasn't read the latest draft, but he is impressed by what he has seen.

"I think it's an exciting plan," Healey said. His staff will present the final plan to the Planning Council for approval. "I think it's creative. I think it's bold.

"My reading is that it's fundamentally sound . . . and based on the realities of the marketplace today."

No one was building new hotels on Clearwater Beach because land costs were too high and the number of units allowed by city codes too small to make the projects financially feasible. The plan's offer of extra resort hotel units is an imaginative solution that transforms the market to the benefit of both developers and the city.

Confining the extra units to resort hotels, rather than giving them to residential projects, was especially inventive. People who live on the beach, as opposed to those just vacationing there, generate more trips on the roads, use more water and demand more public services. So Beach by Design doesn't increase the existing residential density on the island at all. Instead, it focuses on turning around the beach by making it a resort destination.

The pool of units will last five years -- just long enough to create development momentum -- and will go only to developers of high-end resorts that are part of a national or international chain. The developers that receive the units will have to agree in a deed restriction to close the hotel as soon as a hurricane watch is posted for Clearwater Beach. That way, hotel guests won't complicate evacuation of the barrier island.

Many people are uncomfortable with the idea of tall buildings on Clearwater Beach. It conjures up images of Sand Key or Miami Beach. But if the developers get more units, and the land area available for construction is limited, where is there to go but up? If the developers now proposing a 250-room Marriott resort on the beach had to build it under the currently allowable 40 units per acre, they would need more than 6 acres -- simply not practical on the barrier island.

The plan takes surface parking lots off the beach because, well, if you have a fabulous beach, why cover part of the sand with parking lots? Seems kind of nonsensical.

Where the S Gulfview parking lot is now, Beach by Design puts a new, two-lane Gulfview Boulevard that is curvy to slow down traffic and adds wide pedestrian and bike paths, heavy landscaping, room for sidewalk cafes and a dedicated pathway for a slow-moving beach trolley or rail system. That sounds a lot better than a parking lot. Primary beach traffic would be moved to a widened road on the east side of the beachfront hotels, away from the water.

The plan has lots of other components to encourage construction of parking garages, modernized housing, new restaurants and retail shops, and it sets design standards for everything from sidewalk materials and furniture to store facades and awnings.

No one knows whether Beach by Design will be enough to save Clearwater Beach. But already it is opening doors, and that's a good sign.

Recent coverage

Beach resort plan focuses on luxury (January 28, 2001)

A cautious commission serves residents well (January 21, 2001)

Leaders support beach plans (January 19, 2001)

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