Irony of St. Regis garage

This is classic Longboat Key and classic Sarasota. It never changes, and probably never will. Plus, the irony of it all is rich and worth a laugh. 

This is the nature of new development in Florida: People don’t like it when it’s close to their home. It drives them to go on the attack — to defend what they have  and not let others have what they want.

For the residents close to the proposed development, we know this is serious stuff. But if you’ve watched this region and Florida grow and grow and grow (and will continue to grow) over the decades, it’s like watching sitcom reruns.

The actors change, but the characters don’t — cranky neighbors opposing the development, packing Town Hall, delivering stern and passionate pleadings of doom and outrage, or flooding their elected commissioners with fiery letters and emails. There is  the developer portrayed as a plaid-jacketed, greedy, duplicitous carpetbagger. The developer’s lawyers, whom the opposition views as slick and full of legal blather. And the elected commissioners — stewards of the community, but also politicians who want to be liked and reelected.

The story lines are always the same, too: The neighbors say the proposed development is too big or too ugly and is going to ruin the neighborhood and the residents’ lives.

The only thing unpredictable is the ending: Who wins, who loses. 

This show is underway simultaneously in Longboat Key and Sarasota, albeit different episodes. 

In classic, picayune Longboat fashion, the issue is the garage — a proposed two-story garage for the St. Regis Hotel & Residences.

In the city of Sarasota, the issue is a proposed 18-story condominium — the Obsidian, slated for a tight patch of North Palm Avenue that would dwarf the historic Bay Plaza condominiums and become downtown’s tallest building.

Each is emblematic of what everyone in this region should realize is unavoidable and unstoppable: More people will be moving here, and more developments are coming. 

Affluent and wealthy baby boomers have discovered Sarasota, the barrier islands and Lakewood Ranch. So if you thought you found a quaint paradise that would stay how it was when you bought your piece of it, sorry, you’re going to be disappointed.

But rather than be fearful and resentful toward new development and to think it is going to ruin your life, flip the coin. That two-story garage and that 18-story condominium slated for Palm Avenue can and will bring more good things to this region than bad things. History has shown it.

Two examples: 

• Unequivocal catalysts to Longboat Key’s flourishing over the past 50 years were the Colony Beach and Tennis Resort and the Longboat Key Club and Resort. Scores of  Longboaters tell the stories of their parents and families vacationing there and later becoming full- or part-time residents. 
• In downtown Sarasota, the catalyst for the current boom in luxury high-rises came 22 years ago with the opening of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and Residences.

You can be sure the St. Regis will have the same effect.

Out of scale and character?

This is just too rich with irony.

The Longboat Key Town Commission on June 5 spent six  hours listening to the town planner; lawyers and architects for Unicorp Developments; a lawyer for a homeowners association; and 11 residents testifying on the pros and (mostly) cons of whether to allow Unicorp to construct a 156-space, 16,000-square-foot, two-story parking garage on the northeast corner of the St. Regis development.

Every facet of it became a target of scrutiny and criticism — how fast the trees would grow to hide it; whether cars’ headlights would shine in the windows of Bay Isles Harbor residents’ homes; the noise from car engines starting and doors slamming. Nothing was too nitpicky. 

In the end, the commission voted 6-0 against the garage, in short because commissioners all agreed it would be too big, violate the character of Longboat Key, is not needed and would harm nearby neighbors and all Longboaters driving past it on Gulf of Mexico Drive.

Hilarious. 

All the while, you couldn’t help but think of the obvious: That garage would sit in the shadows of three five-story condominium buildings with 69 units and a 166-room St. Regis Hotel containing:       

• Four restaurants
• Lobby lounge and St. Regis bar
• Terrace bar
• Ballrooms
• Meeting rooms and board rooms
• Beach grill
• Beach Monkey Bar
• Event lawn
• Swimming pools
• Saltwater lagoon
• Residents amenity building
• Private residents swimming pool

The place is massive. And that’s without a garage.

Town commissioners approved that development in 2018 and 2021, concerned about whether it would be out of scale for Longboat Key (which, one could argue, it clearly is), but they were eager to replace the Colony and fill its scruffy, vacant lot. 

And yet, that garage (whose 16,000 square feet, by the way, would total only one third of an acre on the 17.6-acre site), well, that garage, if approved, would be forever devastating to the town and its residents.

Really?

Eye of the beholder

At the end of last week’s meeting, Mayor Ken Schneier read a thorough, six-point rationale for his opposing the garage. Taken from standards required in a planned unit development, Schneier referred to his six points as “tests” the garage plans must meet. 

The six points are worth sharing here. As you read them, think of whether the entire St. Regis project, including the proposed garage, would pass the tests:

1. “Preserve and enhance the character of the town by ensuring that the location, density, intensity and character of land uses.”
2. “Maintain an environment that is conducive to the health, safety welfare and property values of the community.”
3. “Protect the visual and esthetic character of neighborhoods, including open space.”
4. “In the case of (planned unit development) approvals, preserve the natural and scenic qualities of open space.”
5. “In the case of departures that they be no less consistent with the health, safety and welfare of abutting landowners and the general public than the standard from which the departure is requested. And, the departure adequately protects against adverse impacts to adjacent parcels and the surrounding area.”
6. “In the case of site plan approvals to be considered, the manner in which the design enhances the amenities of light and air, recreation and visual enjoyment and the relationship for the proposed plan, beneficial or adverse, to the neighborhood in which it is proposed to be established.”

First, the answers to all of these tests are subjective — in the eyes of the beholders. Second, it’s likely true that commissioners and many of the residents opposed to the garage made their judgments on the basis of the plans they read and what they see today on the St. Regis site. As Unicorp lawyer Brenda Patten said, the massive, half-constructed concrete buildings “look intimidating.” They look like an unfinished penitentiary. 

No one can really know or imagine at this point how everything will come together and/or blend in with the surrounding properties until the project is complete and operating. It’s a reasonable guess, but based on renderings.

If ever there was a time to use AI, the Unicorp team would have benefited from a life-like video simulation of a completed St. Regis, with garage and a sampling of what a typical day and night would be like.

And while the commission was being asked to consider the garage in isolation as an amendment to the overall St. Regis plan, it also makes sense to put the proposed garage in context — how it fits into the overall project. 

Context matters. 

Unfortunately, it did not at last week’s meeting. 

In the end, Mayor Schneier’s prepared comments summed up the view of his fellow commissioners and the 254 Longboaters who spoke or expressed in a letter or email their opposition to the garage:

Schneier: “The consensus is (the St. Regis project) is really big, but it’s going to be great. But the envelope can only be pushed so far, and the proposed parking garage exceeds that limit. It’s too big, and it’s too close (to Gulf of Mexico Drive) and would consume too much open space, too much territory. It would loom over the nearest neighborhood and our main road.”

That is his and their opinion. We agree with his first statement, not the rest. 

Other key considerations

It is his and Marriott’s business; let them run it as they see fit.

A repeated argument against the garage was Unicorp did not present a compelling need for additional parking spaces.

Unicorp CEO Chuck Whittall said in a video what he told The Observer last month: Based on post-pandemic travel patterns to Florida, he and St. Regis/Marriott executives have a strong belief the hotel is going to be more successful than originally expected.

What’s more, also based on the ineffectiveness and inefficiency of car lifts at the St. Regis in Bal Harbor in Dade County, they are skeptical the car lifts will allow the hotel to live up to customers’ expectations of a five-star hotel.

Put it this way: Clearly, Whittall and Marriott see the garage as a bet on the future. It’s a business decision and an investment in the future. Build the garage now even if it means excess capacity early on.

Better to have more capacity than to be unable to give customers what they expect.

Surely, most of the retired Longboat Key business executives can identify with that kind of business planning. 

“You can build it later if it’s needed.”

Ha. Imagine a fully functioning St. Regis and the disruptions that would come with the construction of a parking garage. No smart CEO would make that choice over building a garage now — when the site is there, construction crews are working and the resort is still under construction.

The garage actually would serve as a buffer for the residents of Bay Isles Harbor.

They should watch out what they wish for. Without the garage, those Bay Isles Harbor residents closest to the St. Regis are sure to hear and see the constant clanging and rumble of big truck rigs delivering food and hauling away garbage.

As you drive by the St. Regis site, you can’t miss looking at what will be the back-end loading docks and utility center of the resort.

Which would you rather see: a well-shrouded garage with the inaudible hum of EVs or the daily parade of Waste Management and Sysco rigs?

Compromise makes sense.

As noted earlier, context matters. 

We’re guessing most Longboat residents would agree that a cordial, healthy, mutually beneficial relationship between the town leadership and Unicorp’s owner is in everyone’s best interest. 

No one wants what existed before. Longtime residents remember one of the character traits of the late Colony owner Murf Klauber: He was litigious. In fact, he won $14 million from the town in a federal lawsuit in the late 1990s.

It seems obvious, then, when the Town Commission meets June 20 for a second reading on the St. Regis garage, it would behoove everyone to settle on a compromise — a garage smaller than the one proposed.