Vote moves Marriott resort plan forward

After a transportation engineer says traffic will not worsen, the Clearwater City Commission votes to give parts of two roads to the project's developers.

By CHRISTINA HEADRICK

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 20, 2001

CLEARWATER -- The City Commission voted late Thursday to give parts of Third Street and Gulfview Boulevard in Clearwater Beach to the developers of a proposed 250-room Marriott resort after hearing from a traffic engineer that the move wouldn't make beach traffic any worse.

"We're not going to greatly improve conditions," said Brian Johnson, a transportation engineer with DKS Associates of Tampa. "At the same time, we're not going to exacerbate the problems."

Johnson had spent two months analyzing traffic on the southern beach, which is traveled by as many as 55,000 vehicles daily in tourist season.

Using computer models, DKS assessed the effects of closing Third Street between Coronado Drive and Gulfview to allow the construction of the proposed Clearwater Seashell Beach Resort.

The firm also considered what would happen if the city narrows Gulfview from three lanes to two lanes and bumps the road's route to the west where there now are beach parking lots. At the same time, the city would expand two-lane Coronado to have a center turn lane.

The results of the study were that the congestion on the roads on the south beach would remain essentially the same, even with traffic generated by new resorts.

After hearing Johnson's assessment, the commission voted to give part of Gulfview -- a sliver along the boulevard's 200 and 300 blocks -- and Third to the developers of the Seashell. The commission already approved an overall development agreement for the resort in March, and the vote was the next in a series of approvals needed to continue moving the project forward.

Even as the commission voted Thursday, the city faced three lawsuits and one administrative appeal filed by a neighboring hotel owner, Tony Markopoulos, which could slow or sink the Seashell project.

Markopoulos' attorney, Gordon Schiff of Tampa, warned the commission that moving forward with the roadway giveaway could lead to additional litigation. Schiff provided the city with six pages of objections

"Unfortunately, we feel we have been forced into an adversarial posture in regard to this application and others," Schiff said. "I think it's important that you understand that these petitions have problems, and the inconsistencies are growing."

Commissioners responded by asking Markopoulos to come to the table and negotiate his own resort project, rather than continuing with the litigation to block his rival's.

"The best thing that could happen for Clearwater Beach is for both parties to get together and work this out across a table, rather than through the court systems," Commissioner Hoyt Hamilton said. "We can get more done faster than we can through the courts."

The city imposed multiple conditions on the gift of the road segments to the developers, including a provision that if the Seashell resort is not built in the next three years, the roads will remain the city's property.

Also, the Seashell's developers, led by Clearwater attorney Bill Kimpton, will be required to install a 10-foot-wide path across their resort to provide access from Coronado Drive west to the beach.

Still, Schiff called the conditions vague. He criticized the city for moving ahead with vacating part of Gulfview Boulevard before there is an actual design for the new Gulfview's construction or a financing plan.

Schiff also suggested that Third Street was a busy road and was needed by the public to access the beach. He noted that the city charter bars the city from vacating any roads that lead to the water.

But City Attorney Pam Akin said it is okay for the city to vacate portions of Third Street and Gulfview because they don't actually lead to the water and are separated from the beach by platted lots.

Akin and city Planning Director Ralph Stone reassured commissioners that they were comfortable with the city's plans.

"We're not going to get anything done on the beach without these kinds of tools," Stone said.

Commissioners spent much of Thursday's meeting grilling Johnson, the senior transportation engineer at DKS, with detailed questions. The commission had requested the presentation on the DKS traffic study before moving forward.

In the end, most seemed to get their questions answered.

However, Commissioner Bill Jonson voted against the transfer of the Gulfview segment to the Seashell developers, saying that he was concerned the city doesn't have enough details yet on the redesign of the new road.

Commissioner Ed Hart shared that concern and others, but voted for the roadway gifts. Hart said he hopes his questions will be answered by the time the commission takes its second and final vote on the issue in two weeks.

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