A Little Ranting

Those of you that have been following this blog know that one of the issues we have pursued is the give away of public space (downtown) in the form of space above the sidewalk if the developer includes an arcade. See the March 13 blog entry for a graphic and description of arcades.

Apparently what happened is that the Duany Master Plan showed stepbacks of 12' required at the 4th floor level. This was to prevent the canyon effect that 10 story buildings will have when the front facade is at the sidewalk property line.

Well, the property owners and developers objected, saying this was taking their property rights. So a suit was threatened and a "secret" negotiation meeting was held with the city manager and the developer/owners. The result was that a new incentive was included in the code: the developer could keep his vertical space at the property line and the city would give the developers the air space above an arcade. This space will be habitable space that the developer can sell.

What a deal. Now we have a step forward instead of a step back. The canyon is still there but it will be narrower at street level. I’m sure the developers/owners are smiling all the way to the bank and the residents of Sarasota will be frowning on their real narrow streets downtown. No sunshine on Main Street and no sunshine when negotiating.

A simple calculation shows that the value of this give away could be $15M (yes million) for each of the first 3 blocks on Main - if arcades were built along both sides and an estimated $400/sq ft value (very conservative in today’s market) is used.

When we ask planners all over Florida about giving away air space above the sidewalk they are astounded when they hear this tale. We were told early on by our planners that West Palm was the model and pretty pictures of arcades in West Palm were shown in the recommendation for arcades with habitable space. The only problem is that West Palm’s arcades are on private property and no give away was required. In Sarasota we apparently have to have a new model to entice developers to come to our city.

The new building at 1350 Main (across from Sarasota News and Books) will show us what our future may look like. This building will have four floors of habitable space above the sidewalk - given as an incentive to include smaller units (not affordable, just smaller) with their increased density request.