Plaza Verde

In the news is the continuing saga of the development of the parking lot behind Sarasota News and Books (one of downtown's favorite places - uniquely Sarasota). Developer Ali Ebrahimi asked the commissioners (sitting as the CRA) to allow his project to go forward even though it was different than the proposed project.

The second place developer, in the race to see who got access to the property, was still parked on the sidelines, hoping the commissioners would disqualify Ebrahimi on the basis that the revised project did not meet the proposal agreement.

In the end, Ebrahimi convinced the commissioners that it was essentially the same - this took an opinion by the city attorney and an opinion by the director of zoning concerning the definitions of re-development and remodeling. Of course a couple commissioners were pushing to finally get this property developed into something with added public parking. The current proposal being the third try (previous two ended up in the gutter) was about to slip off the edge, but the need for added parking won the day. Thank goodness for all the cars in our walkable downtown.

A little drama unfolded when the co-owner of the Golden Apple Theater indicated her thoughts that the developer always intended to have a smaller project than proposed - the story line being the proposal was only a ploy to win the bid, spiced up with a sub-plot about getting screwed.

Much of the discussion surrounded the private talks between the developer and two adjacent landowners (opera house and Golden Apple) concerning whether they would become part of the development and at what cost. Early in the process commissioners had reservations about these discussions not being open to review. The final outcome left them wondering what happened and why. They also wondered if they process was significantly slowed because the "negotiation" between the developer and the landowners took many months and in the end produced a big zero.

Can we all learn from this example?