Administrative adjustments still must win staff approval
On May 20, the acting chief planner for the City of Sarasota advised the project team for the Adagio complex proposed in downtown Sarasota that it had received partial sign-off from staff.
Exactly a week earlier — on May 13 — Lucia Panica, director of the Development Services Department of the City of Sarasota, formally notified the agent for the Adagio developer that the application submitted to the city on Sept. 9, 2025, had been found to be complete.
The regular technical analysis could begin, Panica continued, with the city’s Development Review Committee (DRC) members reviewing “the plans for compliance with applicable codes and regulations.”
She sent the memo to Joel Freedman, whose eponymous land-use consulting firm is located in Sarasota.
The DRC comprises representatives of city departments, as well as the Sarasota County Fire Department and the Sarasota County School District, who are involved with land-use application reviews.
The developer is The Lutgert Companies of Naples. Formally, the applicant for the project is DT Sarasota Development LLC. Mike Hoyt, vice president of the company, has been present for project team meetings with the DRC.
Moreover, Panica pointed out, with emphasis on the date, “Pursuant to the Fourth Extension Agreement [between the project team and city staff], the City must approve, approve with conditions or deny the administrative adjustment and administrative site plan applications on or before August 5, 2026.”
The agreement Panica was referring to explained that, in accord with Section 166.033 of the Florida Statutes, since the Adagio application was deemed complete on June 11, 2025, city staff was required to approve it, approve it with conditions, or deny it “on or before May 7, 2026, as previously extended.”
Interim City Manager Jennifer Jorgensen signed the fourth extension agreement on May 6, a document shows. Two days earlier — on May 4 — Freedman signed it on behalf of the developer.
During the May 20 DRC meeting, with the Adagio project team present, Rebecca Webster, acting chief planner for the city, announced, “We will be issuing partial sign-off for this application.”
A May 21 city email written by city Communications Specialist Luke Mocherman, which The Sarasota News Leader received through a public records request, explained to an individual that, following that partial sign-off, said, “[T]he next steps for Adagio are for the applicant to address outstanding DRC comments and receive full DRC sign-off, after which the Administrative Site Plan can be approved. The project does not require City Commission approval.”
Among facets of the project team’s fourth submittal for technical review, as noted in a May 5 email from Amanda Cisneros, the city’s development review coordinator, to the DRC members, are the following:
- All of the parcels that would make up the Adagio site have been combined into one for identification purposes: 2027110017. The approximately 2.24-acre location of the building would comprise the parcels with the addresses of 1360 Ringling Blvd.; 301 and 303 S. Palm Ave.; and 330 S. Pineapple Ave. The latter is the address of the U.S. Garage building.
- The new address of the Adagio is 398 Burns Court. The records of the Sarasota County Property Appraiser’s Office note that DT Sarasota Development LLC bought the parcels for $11 million in July 2024.
Further on May 5, Acting Chief Planner Webster sent an interoffice technical review memorandum to the DRC members. She pointed out, “The proposed development includes an 18-story building with 113 market-rate condominium units and a 9-story building with 76 attainable units utilizing Florida’s Live Local Act and the City of Sarasota’s Downtown Attainable Housing Density Bonus, for a total of 189 residential units as well as [approximately] 31,315 square feet of commercial space.”
As The Sarasota News Leader has reported, the Live Local Act law says in part, “A municipality must authorize multifamily and mixed-use residential as allowable uses in any area zoned for commercial, industrial, or mixed use if at least 40 percent of the residential units in a proposed multifamily development are rental units that, for a period of at least 30 years, are affordable as defined in [Florida Statute] 420.0004. … For mixed-use residential projects, at least 65 percent of the total square footage must be used for residential purposes.”
Webster added in her interoffice memo, “The site is located within the Downtown Core (DTC) zone district with a Future Land Use designation of Downtown Core. Vehicular access is proposed from S. Palm Avenue and S. Pineapple Avenue.”
The city’s Downtown Core zoning standards allow up to 10 stories per building.
Another portion of the Live Local Act says, “A municipality may not restrict the height of a proposed development authorized under this subsection below the highest currently allowed, or allowed on July 1, 2023, height for a commercial or residential building located in its jurisdiction within 1 mile of the proposed development or three stories, whichever is higher.” That is the reason the Adagio team can seek the 18-story height for one of the buildings.
In that May 5 memo, Webster also noted that the project team has proposed three “administrative adjustments.” Those are deviations from the city’s regulations for development on the affected site:
- The awning width along Pineapple Avenue would be reduced from 8 feet to 6 feet.
- The required parallel façade length along Pineapple Avenue would be reduced by 23.4 feet, or approximately 16.8%.
- The required habitable space along Pineapple Avenue would be reduced by 25.7 feet, or approximately 22.1%.
The trees issue
On May 20, when the Adagio project team met with the Development Review Committee (DRC) members to review outstanding issues related to the plans, consultant Freedman indicated that the city’s senior arborist’s call for more than one alternative design for tree removal mitigation on the site was the primary issue yet to be resolved.
He suggested the potential of a separate “offline discussion” with the arborist, Jackie Hartley.
“Staff cannot proceed with only one alternative,” Hartley told the project team that day.
She also had noted in her written comments — which she read to the team: “The alternate design tree impact narrative states there is a site constraint due to a private requirement that 135 parking spaces be available for church parking; however, per the Zoning Code, only 19 parking spaces are required. Update the justification to remove this private requirement.”
The affected church, the alternative design narrative notes, is the Church of the Redeemer. The document characterized the constraint as “significant.”
In a May 21 email, which the News Leader also received through its public records request, Hartley noted that she was heading to the Adagio site just after 10:30 a.m. that day to meet with landscape architect and certified arborist Phil Smith, principal of David W. Johnston Associates of Sarasota; Smith is a member of the project team.
Earlier that day, Webster sent an email to a city resident who had inquired about fencing around the trees on the property, the News Leader also read in the documents it received from the Public Records staff. Webster included a comment from Senior Arborist Hartley in that email: “The trees have been properly secured for the demolition of the module that has been approved. I will be monitoring the site.”
The look of the attainable units
During her May 20 DRC meeting remarks regarding zoning and planning issues, Webster indicated several other points that needed to be addressed.
For example, she read, “Please clarify how the required attainable housing units have an exterior appearance and building entrance that is indistinguishable from and functionally equivalent to the market-rate housing units between the two proposed towers within the unified development consistent with the definition of Attainable Housing per Section II-201 [of the City Code].”
That section follows:
In what appears to be a draft May 15 memo to Freedman — which the News Leader received through its May 29 public records request — Webster had added a side comment on May 11 that said, “I definitely see issues with the attainable tower not looking the same as the market-rate tower.”
During the project team’s very first session with the DRC members — conducted on March 5, 2025 — Noah Fossick, then the chief planner for the city, explained that if the developer’s goal was to use the city’s affordable housing density bonus, then the units priced to be attainable would have to be spread among the market-rate units; they could not be in a separate structure, which the team was proposing.
Freedman responded that the developer would use the Live Local Act regulations instead.
The rest of Webster’s section in the formal May 18 DRC memo noted, “The balconies on the attainable housing units appear to have aluminum railings while the market-rate balconies appear to have glass railings. It also appears that the window fixtures between the two towers are different and there is more glazing on the façade of the market-rate units. Please clarify the screening materials used to screen the rooftop mechanical on the 9-story building compared to the 18- story building.”
Further, noting the block marked “interstitial space” in the engineering drawing of the mezzanine level, labeled A.301.5, Webster told Freedman on May 20, “Addressing that will be helpful.”
“We’ll make note of that,” Kemal Muskara of Kobi Karp Architecture and Interior Design in Miami, responded.
The U.S. Garage issue
Webster also pointed out during the May 20 meeting that while an appeal of the city-issued demolition permit for the U.S. Garage property had been dismissed by the city’s Board of Adjustment on April 29, an appeal of that decision could be filed with the 12th Judicial Circuit Court in Sarasota.
(The Board of Adjustment vote was unanimous, as noted in the draft minutes of its April 29 meeting.)
The Sarasota Alliance for Historic Preservation listed the U.S. Garage structure on its 2025 Six to Save list. As noted on its website, each annual list serves as “a call to action for education and advocacy efforts around the uncertain future of these historic resources.” The Alliance adds, “We invite residents and community leaders to be part of a collaborative effort to find alternatives to demolition.”
As the Alliance explains, the U.S. Garage structure was “[t]he first garage built for automobiles in Sarasota during the height of the Florida land boom, the building was a showcase of modern commercial architecture.”
The website further notes, “In 1984, architect Frank Folsom Smith converted the building for office and retail use, retaining original materials and features; it now houses multiple small businesses. The building is occupied and in good condition, but is slated for demolition if a Naples developer is approved to build a multi-building condo complex on a parcel that includes the U.S. Garage site.”
A June 3 News Leader check of the records maintained by the Office of the Sarasota County Clerk of the Circuit Court and County Comptroller found that an appeal had not been filed..