Key Club on deck Monday
Key Club attorney says plan makes sense as is, no compromise in works.
Key Club Spokesperson Katherine Songster shows the scale model to IPOC President Bob White. CREDIT: Steve Reid.
STEVE REID
Editor & Publisher
sreid@lbknews.com
Longboat Key Club Attorney John Patterson said he was disappointed and somewhat puzzled by the negative recommendation Town Planner Monica Simpson made of his client’s $400 million redevelopment proposal.
After careful consideration, Patterson says the plan as presented makes sense and functions as a totality. He says the Key Club has no alternates or agreed-upon compromise positions.
“Our proposal is a particular vision of what we feel can best be done with the property. Monica’s vision of what makes sense is different, and the Key is changing. The bottom line is you have to have certain numbers to make it all work, and those numbers are where we are,” said Patterson.
Patterson added that the club does not have any “other option” plans in the offing. “It takes hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a plan to where it is, we do not have other versions—this is it.”
Long opposed to the current redevelopment proposal, Islandside Property Owners Coalition President Bob White says his group will support a scaled-back project.
“The commission would be well advised to heed her Simpson’s recommendation of denial and Key Club Associates would be well advised to reconsider their plan. IPOC would welcome a plan that we can support which will include a hotel and meeting facilities, spa and villas. For an appropriate plan, we would support reasonable code changes or departures that would be needed to facilitate plan approval,” said White.
Simpson issued her staff report via email to the commission a week ago, and it came on the heels of the successful passage in 4-3 split votes to amend the town zoning code to make the plan less challengeable in court. But for Simpson, the plan is overall too massive in scale to make sense on the site, let alone make sense with town code.
“At the end of the day it is her (Simpson’s) opinion on a highly subjective thing,” said Patterson about Simpson’s report.
To help make sense of the scale of the proposal literally, the Key Club unveiled this week a scale model that will be on display at the hearings on Monday at the Temple. The scale shows all the new construction along with Inn on the Beach and L’ Ambiance. It also shows the hotel and meeting center on opposite sides of the road.
Patterson spoke of the many signature resorts and conference centers where the meeting space functions across a roadway from a hotel. One of Simpson’s issues with the plan is that Longboat Club Road separates the hotel and meeting space, which would impede traffic and pedestrian circulation.
Another area of contention is whether the Key Club will have to pay and how much to the Town Open Space fund.
Normally, when a developer adds dwelling units, it triggers a fee to fund the acquisition of open and recreation space to meet the need of the new residents. The formula is two residents are counted for each new dwelling unit. Every 250 new units built triggers the need for six acres of open/recreation space
The original developer of the Key Club property, ARVIDA, negotiated the trade of Quickpoint Park at the island’s southern terminus to the town instead of paying for the unit allocation approved.
If the Key Club rewrites the terms and limits and increases what it is allowed to build, the town has the ability to require the payment of a land acquisition fund. The Key Club is proposing about 362 new units, possibly creating a need for nearly eight acres. The Key Club is currently negotiating with the town on this issue.
The entire scope of the redevelopment plan includes a 14-story hotel/condo tower, lagoon villas, two mid-rise condo buildings on the golf course, a meeting center and spa, a redesigned golf course makeover as well as a new clubhouse and fitness center.
The Longboat Key Club plan will be discussed before the Town Commission during public hearings at 9 a.m. Monday, June 7 at Temple Beth Israel and at 11 a.m. Wednesday, June 9, also at the Temple Beth Israel.
When I requested that the Key Club provide the commissioners with a 3-D model of their proposed expansion, I had no idea they would produce a 3-D model of such proportions. It must have cost Mr. Lesser a fair amount of money for such a magnificent demonstration of the massive impact of their project.
Last January I had reasoned with the Loeb Group, using my experiences as a set designer for both opera and legitimate theater, that two dimensional drawings (elevations) often obfuscate the real relationships between, in the case of the Key Club, the expansion and surrounding buildings and visual consequences.
This 3-D model clearly demonstrates the impact the Key Club expansion will have both on the surrounding residences and the visual gateway as one comes onto the island.
I thank the Loeb Group for giving the commissioners another perspective on the expansion proposal.
Stop using the buzzword “massive” .
It is nothing of the sort.
It is a gorgeous representation.
If you were so interested why did you resign?
Sounds like sour grapes to me.
Since this is a model that is primarily designed to illustrate relative scale and position, not an architectural model, describing it as gorgeous is a bit disingenuous. In addition to IPOC and the Town’s Planning and Zoning Director, a majority of the Town Commission expressed the same opinion at yesterday’s hearing.