No support voiced for effort to revive plans for structure on Old Stickney Point Road
Following little discussion this week — and none of the Sarasota County commissioners announcing support for it — a privately initiated, proposed amendment to the county’s land-use and zoning regulations that would allow a high-rise hotel on Old Stickney Point Road will not undergo staff review for potential approval.
Representatives of three nonprofit organizations on Siesta Key urged the board members during the Open to the Public comment period of their regular meeting on March 3, in Venice, to deny the request for county Planning Division staff members to undertake a formal analysis of the recommended modification of the county’s Unified Development Coded (UDC). The goal of the amendment was to eliminate the counting of hotel rooms for residential density purposes in the “South Bridge Area” of Siesta Key.
As The Sarasota News Leader has reported, Joe Medred of Genesis Planning and Development in Bradenton, serving as an agent for Siesta Key businessman Dr. Gary Kompothecras, had filed the UDC amendment with the Planning Division staff for consideration; it was one of 12 proposals the commissioners considered on March 3.
The window for that cycle of submissions was Oct. 1 through Oct. 15, 2025, county Zoning Administrator James Ehrmann pointed out during the discussion.
The portion of Siesta Key that would have been affected by the amendment was described in documentation from Medred as “The commercial enclave on Siesta Key located south of Stickney Point Road and east of Midnight Pass Road.”
Ehrmann also noted on March 3 that Kompothecras’ representatives had submitted to staff in May 2025 a proposed amendment to the county’s Comprehensive Plan to achieve the same goal as that of the UDC proposal.
After opponents of the UDC amendment offered their remarks to the commissioners on March 3, Kompothecras himself filled out a card to address the board members.
He told them that he originally had not planned to speak. However, he added, “I was starting to get a headache,” indicating that that was a result of his listening to the opposition to his plans.
Kompothecras reminded the commissioners that, in November 2021, four of their predecessors approved the plans for his 120-room, seven-story hotel, which would have stood at the intersection of Old Stickney Point Road and Peacock Road on the southern part of the Key.
He also noted “a lot of misstatements by the NIMBYs here,” that morning, referring to the representatives of the Siesta Key nonprofits who had preceded him to the podium.
Kompothecras contended that — contrary to speakers’ points — his hotel would be evacuated well in advance of a hurricane’s predicted landfall. Thus, he stressed, his guests would not add to congestion on the roadways as residents tried to leave the barrier island.
He added that he stayed on the islands during the 2024 storms, “because I was afraid of being looted when the floods came through.”
Further, Kompothecras said, his hotel would have “a mega-watt generator” that would enable it to host emergency personnel responding to post-storm needs on the Key — including helping to clean up debris.
Finally, he argued that a hotel would provide sufficient, additional accommodations to deter property owners from building what members of the public call “hotel houses,” which can serve a multitude of visitors.
“I ask you to let this thing go through,” Kompothecras told the commissioners, referring to the proposed UDC amendment, which — Zoning Administrator Ehrmann noted — would have been processed with its accompanying Comprehensive Plan modification.
After Ehrmann presented summaries of all of the proposed UDC amendments that staff received in October 2025, he asked the board members for direction on each.
In regard to Kompothecras’ materials, Commissioner Mark Smith, a decades-long Siesta resident, announced, “This one, I’m not in favor of moving forward.”
He pointed out — as one of the speakers had that morning — that the county lost litigation over the commission’s vote in late 2021 to approve a UDC amendment that did what Kompothecras was seeking for the South Bridge Area.
Moreover, Smith said, the intersection of Stickney Point Road and Midnight Pass Road “is probably the most congested on the Key,” with an abundance of tourists on the island driving in that area along with residents and business owners and employees.
Commissioner Joe Neunder, who represents the southern part of Siesta as part of his District 4 territory, concurred with Smith that that amendment should not be allowed to move forward.
Commissioner Tom Knight opposed staff’s processing of the amendments, as well.
“So that does not go through,” Chair Ron Cutsinger summed up the view of the board members.
Following discussion about all of the proposed amendments, the commissioners made their decision final in a formal vote.
The 2021 litigation against the county and concerns about added density and intensity on the island
The very first speaker during Open to the Public period that morning to address the Kompothecras proposal was Robert Sax, who was a plaintiff in one of two complaints against the county that fought the 2021 votes approving high-rise hotels on Siesta Key.
Lourdes Ramirez, president of the nonprofit Protect Siesta Key, which was established in early 2025, launched the litigation over what she characterized as “mega-hotels.” Sax is vice president of Protect Siesta Key.
Twelfth Judicial Circuit Judge Hunter W. Carroll ruled that the County Commission seated in October 2021 had violated a policy within the Comprehensive Plan — which guides growth in the community — in approving the 2021 UDC amendment filed to support plans for an eight-story, 170-room hotel on the edge of Siesta Village.
During his March 3 remarks, Sax also noted that Kompothecras’ proposal would apply to “a handpicked, carved-out area of Siesta Key.” He added that it would affect the “safety, health and quality of life for residents.”
Hundreds of homeowners who depend on the dead-end Old Stickney Point Road to reach and leave their homes would have to contend with far more traffic if hotel guests were added into the mix, Sax continued.
“Furthermore,” Sax pointed out, “we all understand and realize that the removal of important protections of the Comprehensive Plan for one area is just a ‘straw man’ for the eventual removal of those protections for all areas.”
Sax added, “The insatiable appetite of developers for huge profits generated by mega-hotels is a threat to all residents of these fragile barrier islands.”
Neal Schleifer, vice president of the Siesta Key Condominium Council, was the second person to comment on the Kompothecras proposal.
The Council, he reminded the board members, represents 100 associations with more than 7,000 households.
“The Key, we all know, is overly congested,” Schleifer pointed out. “Density and intensity should not be increased.”
He described an incident that occurred last week, as he was returning to the Key when “traffic was bumper-to-bumper, backed up from Midnight Pass over the bridge to U.S. 41.” An emergency vehicle couldn’t get through, so it had to drive against traffic, down Stickney Point Road, to Midnight Pass in the wrong direction, Schleifer explained.
“If traffic leaving the Key had been heavier, as it often is,” he continued, “the outcome could have been very different.”
Since word had spread among Siesta residents about the March 3 agenda item, he added, “We’ve heard a huge outcry …” He said he expected the commissioners had heard protests about it, as well.
Robert Luckner, acting treasurer of the Siesta Key Association (SKA), noted what he characterized as “several fatal flaws” in the text of the Comprehensive Plan amendment that Kompothecras’ agents filed with the county in May 2025.
Showing the commissioners a copy of that filing, Luckner noted the vagueness of the term “South Bridge Area.”
Luckner added that owners of adjacent commercial properties that were not included in the map that Kompothecras’ representatives showed participants of a May 12, 2025 Neighborhood Workshop on the Comprehensive Plan amendment had asked why their parcels were not included within the boundaries.
The answer, Luckner continued, was that they had not asked for their properties to be included in it.
Turtles Restaurant, which stands several miles south of Kompoethecras’ hotel site — at 8875 Midnight Pass Road — Luckner pointed out, “fits the definition in the text amendment.” Yet, it too, was not included the South Bridge Area’s limits, he said.
Clarification of the boundaries of the affected portion of the island is just one step that would be needed, Luckner said, before any further action should be taken on Kompothecras’ proposal.
Luckner’s wife, Catherine, who is the president of the SKA, told the commissioners that they should not “utilize scarce staff planning resources” on the UDC and Comprehensive Plan amendments.