Dive Brief:
- The Sarasota (FL) City Commission gave its final approval Monday for a $1 billion mixed-use development on the city’s downtown waterfront, according to the Herald-Tribune.
- The project will feature several buildings up to 18 stories high, with approximately 700 condominiums, 175 hotel rooms, 190,000 square feet of retail, 40,000 square feet of office space, a traffic roundabout at the development’s entrance and public recreational trails. The project is divided into nine "blocks," and each requires individual commission approval.
- The time it will take to design and permit the project’s water, sewer and road components is estimated at one year. According to developers, construction should take another decade.
Dive Insight:
This project marks the first time that Sarasota has approved a development without reviewing specific site plans, a requirement that city planners said was "impractical" for such large projects with several phases. One commissioner voted against the project, as she said it would be too dense a complex.
Los Angeles developers have faced backlash against high-density projects as well. However, some segments of the community have turned that pushback into legislative action. The Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, up for a vote in March, would ban the zoning changes necessary to build megadevelopments for two years. The pro-development side says these projects can provide critical housing, but advocates of the measure say it will stop developers from profiting off of overstressed communities.
An example of a development that some activists say is too big is a 14.5-acre, mixed-use project on the site of two warehouses in the Los Angeles Arts District. Developers want to build a 58-story high rise — which would include residential, office and retail — as well as two hotels, a park, a school and 23,000 square feet of creative space open to the community. Project officials have tried to speed up the application process in the hopes of beating the March vote.