City Commission hearing set for April 21
Editor’s note: This article was updated late in the morning of April 11 to correct a quote from Bill Carnes during the press conference. Because of audio problems, the News Leader misunderstood what he said in likening the 1260 N. Palms Residences building to a treehouse.
On Monday, April 21, it will be up to the Sarasota City Commission to decide whether to allow a new condominium complex on South Palm Avenue, with only 14 units, to dwarf all the other buildings in the city’s skyline.
That day, the board members will hear an appeal by the Bay Plaza Owners Association of a Feb. 12 vote by the city’s Planning Board that confirmed that the 1260 N. Palm Residences project does comply with the city’s Standards for Review.
The item is No. XI.1 on the April 21 agenda. The meeting will begin at 9 a.m. in the Commission Chambers of City Hall, which stands at 1565 First St. in downtown Sarasota.
Originally proposed slightly more than two years ago at a height of 342 feet, the structure known on Realtors’ websites as the Obsidian figuratively shrank by 15 feet when its design was tweaked after the Planning Board in early 2024 voted against the adjustments necessary to the initial design.
Bay Plaza residents have contended from the outset of the news of the plans for the project that the 1260 N. Palm Residences building would be incompatible not only as their very close neighbor but also amid the shorter structures citywide.
Ron Shapiro, one of the Bay Plaza leaders, has appeared before the City Commission during numerous meetings over the past couple of years to explain why the project must be stopped.
On April 9, Shapiro appeared with a number of other Obsidian opponents during a downtown press conference in an effort to ensure that the public is aware of the April 21 hearing and to gain support for the Bay Plaza group’s appeal.
“We’re at a real critical stage of the project,” he said. “We’ve been fighting this for two-and-a half-years, and we’re kind of coming down the homestretch.”
Standing at 1260 N. Palm, Shapiro provided what he characterized as “quick background on what this project is.” He explained, “The plan is to tear down this strip of seven mom-and-pop retail businesses here and replace it with a 327-foot skyscraper. “ The tower, he continued, would be “more than 100 feet taller than any other building in Sarasota. It’s going to be twice as tall as the Bay Plaza condo building, which is behind it.”
Shapiro further contended that the developer — Michael Kihnke, president of MK Equity — has used “a number of loopholes” to achieve the height of the building. Moreover, Shapiro continued, “Despite the fact that he doesn’t comply with about a handful of city zoning codes … believe it or not, the city staff has approved the project …”
Shapiro added that he and the other Bay Plaza Owners Association members hope “that the city commissioners have the wisdom and responsibility and courage to deny this [project], not only because [that decision] reflects the will of the people, but also because it’s the right thing to do …”
Beyond the concerns for Bay Plaza, he stressed, approval of the 1260 N. Palm Residences will set a precedent “for developers to kind of follow this and do a bunch of copycat 300-plus-feet, high-rises all around the city.”
The speakers present for the press conference and a rally, he pointed out, are downtown Sarasota residents. “We didn’t need to bring anybody in to do the talking,” he said, as the residents are capable of providing “different dimensions and reasons why this is absolutely the wrong thing to do.”
Further, Shapiro noted, more than 4,000 people have signed petitions against the project, and “ thousands of emails” have been sent to the city commissioners. “We’ve had dozens of people speak at city meetings,” too, expressing their opposition to the project.
“Interestingly,” he pointed out, not one person ever has expressed support for the building during a City Commission meeting. “So I think that’s pretty telling,” he added, in terms of how city residents and other the community members feel about the plans.
He expressed his appreciation to the Downtown Sarasota Condominium Association — “and especially the condos in our vicinity here downtown” — for their support.
“I also want to just mention these seven retail shops,” Shapiro continued. “These folks are really the silent people, the little people who really have no say in what’s going on. All of them are happy to be here and their businesses are doing well. The problem is the developer is also the owner of their shops, so they’re really not in a position to speak out against it. They’re all on short-term leases. So if they really say how they feel, you know, their rents’ll be tripled or they’ll be forced out. And we don’t want that to happen because that’s their livelihood for them and their employees and their families,” he added.
The adjustments being sought
Next, Shapiro explained the three adjustments that the project team won support for from the city’s Development Services Department. He called the adjustments “a strong basis for the commissioners to deny this project, asserting that the adjustments do not comply with the city’s Zoning Code. They are as follows:
- A 20.8% reduction in the façade coverage on the ground floor, parallel to North Palm Avenue, from 133.61 feet to 105.87 feet. “The lot has 148.45 feet of total frontage,” an Oct. 2, 2024 city document said.
- An adjustment of 6.5% for habitable space on the ground floor, from 105.87 feet to 99.02 feet, “(with the inclusion of the façade adjustment),” and by 8.6% on the second floor, from 148.45 feet to 135.7 feet.
- A 9.4% reduction in the required retail frontage, to 95.89 feet, where 105.87 feet would be required “(with the inclusion of the façade adjustment),” the document added.
Further, Shapiro noted that the project team “required special approval to transport their refuse down the block near the alley by the Epicure [restaurant], something that’s very, very rare. So you’re going to be seeing trash carried down here, several hundred feet, on a regular basis.”
Nonetheless, Shapiro focused on what he called the most important facet of the plans as approved by city staff and the Planning Board: “This project to me defines incompatibility. There’s nothing compatible about it relative to this street, the surrounding buildings, the neighborhood, the small one-quarter lot that it’s being forced onto.”
A professional engineer’s views
The second speaker was Bill Carnes, whom Shapiro described as “an engineer with extensive experience in the construction area. He was the founder and chairman of his engineering firm, Hills-Carnes, and is a professional engineer registered in eight states, I think, including Florida.”
Carnes said he has been a city resident for more than 12 years.
“I’d like to get a little technical here about what’s being built,” he told the press conference attendees.
Noting “this tiny quarter-acre lot,” Carnes said, “The developer wants to maximize profits by giving this virtually landlocked site views of Sarasota Bay and the Gulf by making [the building] obscenely tall,” so its residents will be able to see over the 14th story of Bay Plaza. Yet, he pointed out, “This is basically going to be a treehouse for oligarchs,” eliciting laughter from people attending the press conference. “These units can be very expensive,” he added, “and it’s only 14 units.”
Further, he explained, “The proposed structure, due to its extreme height, would face the highest wind loads” in the area.
Because of the depth of interstitial space between floors — the area where mechanical equipment is located — Carnes pointed out that even though the condo tower will comprise 18 stories, it “will be the equivalent of a 30-story building. It’s going to have incredible wind loads, adding to the current earthquake loads that the [Building] Code requires. We’re looking at a foundation that must withstand immense overturning forces that could tend to topple the structure and substantial shear and lateral loads that will tend to move the building sideways.”
Carnes stressed that the foundation system will be something that “no one’s ever seen before in Sarasota. … The complexity of this foundation is not just a technical challenge, but a potential safety hazard as well. We’re talking about large-diameter excavations extending through unstable, saturated sands to reach the underlying rock, which itself has geologic uncertainties, including the potential for caves, voids, and crevices in the quartz limestone coral formation below us.”
And to construct the tower, he estimated that “about a thousand truckloads of concrete [will be] coming down Palm Avenue.,” along with “numerous trucks to deliver the seven acres of drywall that this project would require.”
Carmes added, “Because this building, this site, has no back door, no alleys, no side [access], everything that comes into this building is going to come across this sidewalk that we’re standing on today. It’s going to be a mess.”
Moreover, he said, “The construction of this project disregards the concept of a pedestrian-friendly environment. We’ll also turn our streets and sidewalks into a construction nightmare for about two to three years.”
He also noted, “The proximity of Bay Plaza adds another layer of risk. Bay Plaza was constructed in 1982 on small precast concrete pile groups. … Bay Plaza stability could be seriously compromised by the excavation” required for the foundation.
“I don’t think Sarasota needs this space needle for billionaires,” Carnes stressed.