Despite concerns from neighborhood residents and the state transportation agency, a Manatee County developer is marching ahead with plans for a mixed-use project at the busy U.S. 41-Stickney Point Road intersection.
Benderson Development Co. filed a formal application Aug. 26 to rezone a former mobile home park to allow construction of 501 condo and apartment units, a 150-room hotel and 140,000 square feet of retail space.
The Sarasota County Commission has scheduled a public hearing on Oct. 11 to consider the CAP boundary. No dates have been set for public hearings on the rezoning before either the Planning Commission or the County Commission.
“The project will be a place where residents, shoppers and hotel guests can park once, circulate the property and enjoy a unique mix of national, local and regional retailers and restaurants,” Todd Mathes, Benderson’s director of development, wrote in the application. “The proposed layout will significantly enhance the streetscape of the Stickney Point and U.S. 41 intersection by delivering buildings elements continuously along the perimeter of the property.”
But neighbors believe doubling the currently allowed residential density at the 24-acre site would be too intensive for the area.
Benderson did not scale down its plans after a neighborhood workshop and a meeting with the Siesta Key Association raised concerns about the increased density, said Sura Kochman, a leader of the Pineshore Neighborhood Alliance that opposes the scope of the development.
“One wonders why these meetings take place at all,” she said.
The Florida Department of Transportation has urged that any future development at U.S. 41 and Stickney Point receive “special consideration” for its impact on traffic and safety. Siesta Promenade is proposed on the northwest corner of the intersection.
Keith Slater, a traffic services engineer with FDOT, noted an “astonishing” 175 percent total increase in traffic crashes at that intersection between 2010 and 2014. FDOT data showed 229 crashes there during that five-year period.
Kimley-Horn, in a traffic study submitted with the rezoning application, analyzed traffic from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on a Thursday and from 12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. on a Saturday in March. Assuming build out in 2020, the study concluded that the level of service at the intersection would be operated at LOS D, which is generally defined as approaching unstable flow, with speeds slightly decreasing as traffic volume slightly increases.
Kochman questions the times of day those studies were done.
“The true picture of what occurs throughout the day — peak drive times to the beach and sunsets — were not included,” she said.
Benderson bought the former Pine Shores mobile home park and a next-door gas station in 2005. It wants to rezone the properties to commercial general from the current mobile home, multi-family and office uses.
“Our company has studied a number of different potential commercial uses for the project, ranging from a mix of residential, hospitality and commercial uses that were dense and intense in form, to lifestyle and town center projects that evoke new urbanism planning concepts,” Mathes said.
He said Siesta Promenade will be an “open air retail/small lifestyle center.”
County officials say the review time to get to a final public hearing before the County Commission is about six months.
The company has said it hopes to break ground by March on the retail center, the hotel and potentially the first phase of the residential dwellings. The retail portion would open by October 2017, and work on the residential phases would continue through 2023.
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