- March 13, 2025
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After a decade of the Vengroff family attempting to build affordable housing on its property in the Park East community, a development partner has taken a significant step in making Sarasota Station a reality.
On Wednesday, the Sarasota Planning Board approved by identical 4-1 votes the final plat and alley and utility easement vacations for a 69-unit townhome development on 3.19 acres of the Sarasota Station property. The project street addresses are 300 Audubon Place and 2211 Fruitville Road.
The sale of the parcel for Audubon Townhomes, planned by development company S.S. Sasquatch principal Paxton Kinol, will help fund the 202 affordable and workforce-priced rental apartments planned by One Stop Housing.
The lone dissenter among the Planning Board was Terrill Salem, who declined to support the applications for lack of clarity during the meeting of the bedroom mix of the 92 affordable housing units among the 202 apartments, identified as phases 1 and 2 of Sarasota Station. Audubon Townhomes is identified as Phase 3 of Sarasota Station, but will be developed first.
Phase 1 and 2, One Stop Housing CEO and Managing Partner Mark Vengroff told the Observer, will be built at the same time.
Member Douglas Christy, as did the rest of the Planning Board, took the position that the affordable apartment bedroom mix was irrelevant to the matter at hand, which was clearing the way for the townhomes.
“There are issues in this application that relate to, as I understand it, the Phase 1 and Phase 2, but the bulk of what we discussed today is the Phase 3, which has no (affordable housing) component to it,” Christy said.
Since the late Harvey Vengroff introduced Sarasota Station as a concept in 2015, the project has frequently morphed as the founder of One Stop Housing made multiple attempts to bring it to fruition. His son, Mark Vengroff, made the decision to divide the 16-acre site into a hybrid market rate/affordable housing concept to assemble the capital stack necessary for the project.
The sale of the land for the Audubon Townhomes netted One Stop Housing $11 million.
The 92 affordable apartments are required by the city's affordable housing ordinance to be priced as attainable to households earning 120% or below area median income. Vengroff said it is his intention for most of the affordable units to be priced below the 80% AMI threshold.
“The affordable/workforce apartments are in every way luxury apartments with the only difference being the rents will be set at rates that are more affordable for working families,” Vengroff told the Observer. "The townhomes and the apartments are going to tie in nicely together to create a beautiful addition to the community.”
To punctuate the railroad theme of the project, the iconic diner Bob’s Train will relocate on the site and continue to operate. Vengroff said One Stop Housing is working with the Sarasota County government on details of an agreement for a $15 million federal Community Development Block Grant via the Resilient SRQ program.
“Once this is completed we will be ready to finalize our building plan permits and start moving forward with construction,” Vengroff said.
