Broadway proposal would be first of its kind on Longboat

The Longboat Key Planning and Zoning Board is recommending approval of a property in Longbeach Village seeking to redevelopment a six-unit apartment building at the corner of Broadway Street and Longboat Drive North into four single-family units.

Using the town’s Conformance Overlay Redevelopment District process for the first time, Sarasota-based Cypress Cash wants to build the homes at 551 Broadway Street, 7009 Longboat Drive North and 7017 Longboat Drive North.

“We’re more here in an advisory and recommendation mode than a final decision-making mode, so I want to make that clear to everybody who’s participating,” P&Z Chair David Green said.

On Sept. 21, the P&Z Board recommended approval of a comprehensive plan amendment, a rezone and a site development for the properties. Town staff had also recommended approval of the proposal submitted by architect Bob Rokop, who is serving as a consultant to the project.

Before the measure heads to the Town Commission, the P&Z Board asked for Rokop to clarify who specifically would own the plot of land among the four proposed single-family homes.

“Because the property is going to have four single-family homes on a single lot, they don’t necessarily need to meet all the regulations with respect to each other, and so the way that that’s going to happen is there’s going to be joint ownership of the land by the owners of the homes,” Rokop said.

The Longboat Key Town Commission is now set to review the proposal during its Nov. 1 meeting. 

There are three options in Longboat Key for non-conforming properties, which are properties built to a density standard that has changed over the years:

• Build the property back to the specifications that had previously existed;
• Keep the non-conforming density, but then redevelop according to the zoning district standards;
• A CORD application;

“We had, in 1984, a downzoning of the town, so a significant amount of properties in the town are over density,” town planner Tate Taylor said. “They have more density than would be allowed otherwise under the zoning that they are presently.”

Changes made by Longboat Key in 2019 allow some flexibility for developers to rebuild properties to match up better with modern tastes and the marketplace.

“It’s like the poster child for redevelopment, according to our new code,” Rokop said.

Rokop is no stranger to the Longbeach Village neighborhood. From 1994-2014, he lived on Longboat Drive South. Rokop was also the architect behind Whitney’s, which won LBK North’s Good Neighbor Award in April.

“The way the comprehensive plan is written is they encourage creative methods of rehabilitating properties,” Rokop said. “I think this was very creative thing.”

Public records show 551 Broadway was built in 1946, with a renovation in 1981. It was initially called Lerfald Landing. Including the two Longboat Drive North addresses, the property is about 19,635 square feet or about 0.45 acres.

Town documentation shows each home would be two stories and have about 2,500 square feet of living space. Three of the driveways would be off Longboat Drive North and one would be on Broadway.

On Sept. 21, the owner’s representative, Steve Ellis of Ellis Consulting Group, said only one of the six apartments is occupied. 

“Honestly, we haven’t been trying to put people in there just to tear the thing down,” Ellis said. “I mean ultimately the goal is to take the building down and redevelop the property, and everything that we’ve been doing along the way has been leading toward that.” 

Rokop said it’s important for residents to know that the proposal follows the town’s code.

“It’s a little physically denser than other areas, but I don’t think it’s something that’s out of character with what’s there,” Rokop said.