This month, director of Parks, Recreation and Natural Resources reports on ‘substantial progress’ in update to county administrator
After the Sarasota County commissioners voted 4-1 on May 5 to spend about $18.1 million on the 2.04-acre site known as The Boatyard on Stickney Point Road, staff reported last month that it had encountered a number of issues that put the deal in jeopardy.
However, an Oct. 13 update that Shawn Yeager, director of the county’s Parks, Recreation and Natural Resources Department (PRNR), offered a more optimistic assessment of the situation. “[T]here has been substantial progress,” he reported to County Administrator Jonathan Lewis, in regard to resolving “access and utility issues.”
Staff tentatively is scheduled to discuss the issues with the commissioners during their regular meeting on Nov. 4, that Oct. 13 update added.
The County Commission decision to buy the property at the price that owner Chris Brown of Osprey sought has been controversial in the community, as evidenced by social media accounts that The Sarasota News Leader has read. During their discussions, board members stressed the public’s desire for more water access as their primary reason for the decision.
The records maintained by Sarasota County Property Appraiser Bill Furst and his staff show that Brown paid $8.9 million for the property on Jan. 31, 2024.
Commissioner Tom Knight cast the “No” vote in May, expressing concern about the limitations that the board members would face in purchasing any other environmentally sensitive lands or neighborhood parkland if the county spent that much money on The Boatyard site.
In response to a News Leader inquiry this week, county Parks, Recreation and Natural Resources staff reported the following in an Oct. 21 email: “The total available amount [for the county’s Land Acquisition and Management Program] recently increased with funding added at the start of the new fiscal year,” so the figure is $21,795,988.
The Sept. 14 status report
In a Sept. 14 memo, which the News Leader received through a public records request, Yeager of PRNR explained that during the county’s due diligence period, county staff and the title agent — the Fergeson Skipper law firm in Sarasota — sent letters to Brown, pointing to sections of the “title commitment” that needed to be satisfied.
As Apex Surveying explains on its website, “A title commitment is a document from a title insurance company that lists all conditions that must be met before [the company] will issue a title insurance policy. It identifies liens, easements, encumbrances, and survey-related exceptions affecting the property.”
Apex Surveying adds, “In Florida, a title commitment is standard in nearly all real estate transactions — residential and commercial.”
In the situation with The Boatyard property, Yeager continued in that memo, nearly 30 items of the Title Commitment needed to be satisfied.
He also pointed out, “An additional objection was made to the Sellers regarding the rights or claims of the Boatyard Condominium Association of Sarasota … to the south and/or its owners to use, operate, access, maintain, and/or require maintenance of systems for water, sewer, drainage, utilities and the private [sewer] lift station and related infrastructure on the Sellers’ property and as shown in the survey of [the site].”
A representative of the association appeared before the County Commission before the May vote, expressing concerns about the lift station and utility issues.
“Unfortunately,” Yeager wrote, “there is nothing of record to establish what the rights and/or liabilities actually consist of.”
In accord with the contract between the county and Brown, through his limited liability company, Big Main Street LLC — Brown “had 15 days to cure all [title] defects,” Yeager noted. “However, on May 27,” he added, Brown’s attorney sent a written notice to the county, seeking to extend that “cure period” by 30 days, to July 7. With county staff’s agreement, Yeager indicated, that extension was put into place on July 8, so the period was to expire on Aug. 8.
The Office of the County Attorney (OCA) and county staff “have been diligently working with Fergeson Skipper,” as well as Brown’s attorneys and the adjacent condominium association to address the defects, Yeager wrote, “particularly the easements and private utilities and systems.” Yeager did note that “substantial progress” had been made “between the OCA and the legal representation of the Condo Association to resolve the access and utility issues …”
The canal right of way easement issue
Then Yeager explained that the OCA and county staff had had “several meetings” with representatives of both the West Coast Inland Navigation District (WCIND, which is based in Venice), and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) “to determine an appropriate course of action to resolve the Canal Right of Way Easement … that encumbers the westerly parcel directly on Little Sarasota Bay.”
Yeager added, “Unfortunately, USACE is not willing or able to extinguish or release the [right of way] Easement at this time.” Instead, he pointed out, the USACE had provide the county staff two options “should the County consider closing on the Property with this defect and encumbrance.”
The first was for the county to submit an application to the USACE, requesting that it dispose of or exchange the right of way easement. Yet, Yeager pointed out, that could take up to five years and require payment from the county “equal to fair market value” of that parcel; it also could be denied.
The second option, he continued, called for the county to submit an application to the USACE for what is known as a Section 408 Permit for Consent to Easement (CTE), which would allow for use of the property for temporary structures such as docks and picnic shelters. (Both of the latter were potential amenities that Yeager had discussed with the county commissioners during presentations on the county’s acquisition of the site.)
The latter option, Yeager explained, could take one or two years, but the costs would be the minimum for standard USACE administrative processing work in such situations.
Counsel for the USACE informed county staff and the OCA that the structures existing on that easement are “unpermitted and unauthorized encroachments [and, therefore] violations of federal regulations,” Yeager further noted.
Thus, he added, “If the County were to take possession of the property with the encroachments still present, the County could assume this risk and liability.”
Finally, he wrote, the right of way easement “contains rights of access and use granted to USACE to use the property for storage of [spoils] from dredging activity. This type of easement is similar to a construction easement,” Yeager explained, “and such use by USACE would encumber the Property and could impede the County from certain future uses and improvements.”
A formal Notice of Default Letter
As of the Sept. 14 date of that first memo, Yeager further noted that Brown and county staff had differed in their views of the issues that still needed to be resolved, including the status of the right of way easement. “[T]he County is not required to accept title subject to USACE’s rights to use the property, or its potential enforcement actions,” Yeager pointed out. “Nor is the county required to assume the risk, cost, delay, or liability associated with curing [Brown’s] pre-closing title defects after [the closing on the sale].”
In accord with the contract, Yeager continued, Brown was in default at that time, since the extended cure period had ended. If Brown refused, neglected or failed “to carry out any terms of the Contract, he added, the county could terminate the contract after giving 10 days of notice to Brown.
Therefore, Yeager wrote, the Office of the County Attorney had sent a Notice of Default Letter to Brown’s attorney.
The lingering Army Corps issue
In his Oct. 13 update, Yeager provided County Administrator Lewis a copy of a letter from the USACE “with guidance on how to proceed with potential activities, development, or structural improvements within the federally held Canal Right-of-Way Easement at 1500 Stickney Point Road …”
Yeager added that the USACE “must complete a formal District Evaluation and Determination before any disposal (demolition) or modification of federal land rights can occur.”
The USACE, he continued, “has confirmed that an existing restaurant structure encroaches into the federal easement without authorization. This issue must be resolved either through formal retroactive approval or removal of [the structure]” before the federal agency could proceed with one of two options that Yeager then listed, related to formal District Evaluation and Determination.
The two options appear to mirror those in the Sept. 14 memo, though with more detail, the News Leader found.
Yeager explained that the first would “extinguish the federal easement entirely, granting the landowner full, unrestricted use of the property.” Three layers of USACE approval would be necessary for that, Yeager noted, and the county would have to “provide all supporting documentation,” including surveys, title work and appraisals. Further, the county would have to pay for “all federal administrative and technical costs,” with an initial fee of $7,500 needed.
Again, he noted that that process could take up to five years.
The second option, Consent to Easement, would preserve the federal government’s interest in the parcel “while allowing compatible local use within the easement.”
However, Yeager cautioned, that “is closely tied” to a USACE review process, “which evaluates whether proposed alterations could impair the Intracoastal Waterway or conflict with the federal easement.”
Further, Yeager noted, while recreational structures “may be permissible under this pathway,” any “four-walled structures” generally would not be allowed. Once more, he wrote that that option could take about a year.
Yeager also reported that, on Sept. 30, a representative of the Office of the County Attorney and county staff had met with property owner Brown and his attorney, laying out the “severity of the defects and potential solutions that could provide a path to closing,” including a proposed escrow agreement and execution of a third amendment to the contract between Brown and the county.
On Oct. 5, Yeager added, Brown’s attorney sent the county a proposal involving the escrow agreement and the amendment.
That letter asked that those “be presented to the Board of County Commissioners for approval at the earliest practicable regular meeting, and in any event no later than the Board’s November 4, 2026 meeting.”