Rezoning approved for Bahia Vista Apartments

The years-long saga over redevelopment of the former Doctors Hospital of Sarasota site has neared its conclusion. On Monday, the Sarasota City Commission affirmed its 4-1 approval of Bahia Vista Apartments. 

Commissioners on second reading upheld their prior decision to increase the density of the site, which allows the apartment to move forward as proposed. The second reading was required because the matter failed to garner unanimous vote on the first reading.

A site plan is expected to come before commissioners as soon as March.

With 250 rental units, Bahia Vista Apartments will include 42 priced as affordable. It is an early test case of the city’s 2022 comprehensive plan amendments that encourage development of affordable and attainable housing by providing density bonuses and other incentives to developers who include them in their projects. 

The 6.09-acre parcel at the corner of Tuttle Avenue and Bahia Vista Street stands at the edge of the Arlington Park neighborhood, whose residents have opposed plans for high-density apartments on the site since 2019. The developer, Bahia Vista Associates LLC, will raze the remaining buildings there, with the exception of the 400-space parking deck that will be refurbished and used by residents.

Doctors Hospital was demolished in 2016.

The approval did not come without one final, brief debate as Commissioner Jen Ahearn-Koch voiced her continuing objection to the project.

“The impact on the health and safety of the adjacent neighborhood and the community at-large I think is far greater than we can absorb and should be absorbing in the city,” she said. “I see no public benefit from this project, and I would ask that you vote no.”

Countered Commissioner Erik Arroyo: “It was a very difficult decision to make, but it's whether we want housing on this site that is currently unused, or do we want a commercial enterprise, which would be an assisted living facility with employees and with deliveries coming in and out every single day, which would actually be more units in a more intense manner. We are giving them the less intense alternative of the two things that can go there.”

The project approval runs counter to the Planning Board, which by a 3-2 vote previously recommended denial of the rezoning and site plan.