Wall in front of home long has served as place for beach runners to touch
Following a June 2 public hearing that lasted about 30 minutes, the Sarasota County commissioners unanimously approved plans for a replacement seawall on property located at 7120 Point of Rocks Circle on Siesta Key’s Crescent Beach.
As noted during the presentations that day, the seawall will be 304.9 feet, long, and it will be located a maximum of 114.4 feet seaward of the Gulf Beach Setback Line (GBSL). Established in 1979, that line was implemented to protect dunes and native beach habitat, which, in turn, protect landward properties from the effects of storm surge and other flooding events.
Heather Rigney, an environmental specialist with the county, pointed out that the new seawall will stand at a height of about 9.1 NGVD, “sloping back to about 8.1 feet.” The existing seawall is 8.1 feet high, the county staff report notes. Seaward of that wall is a concrete walkway that has an elevation of 3 feet, the report adds.
Matthew Brockway, an attorney with the Icard Merrill firm in Sarasota who was representing the applicants, pointed out to the commissioners that the affected home “is at the southern end of Crescent Beach.”
He added, “This is quite an iconic property. If you’ve ever done the Siesta Key summer beach runs, this is the wall you touch before you turn around and have a sinking feeling that you’ve got another 1.6 miles to go back to the public beach.”
People long have used the walkway in front of the existing seawall, he acknowledged. “It’s still trespassing,” Brockway said, “but, historically, the owner has not strongly objected to folks scurrying across.”
A public hearing was a fitting way to ensure that the public knows what will be taking place, Brockway continued, as he expects beachgoers to be curious about work on the site, given the fact that so many people are familiar with the wall.
Commissioner Joe Neunder pointed out, “There’s a lot of history with runners and swimmers and snorkelers in Sarasota County,” including many who know the property well. He is among them, he told one of the owners — Samuel Petersheim — who was in the audience.
“Some of us had to swim to your property and then run back, back in the day,” Neunder added with a smile at Petersheim.
Further, Neunder noted, many athletes who come to the county each year for training take routine runs on Siesta Beach — as do the lifeguards who work on that beach, Neunder noted — and they touch the wall.
“Thank you for your endeavor to protect your property,” Neunder told Petersheim. “There are those of us in the community that find tremendous value [in] sitting on the ledge, snorkeling, resting, snorkeling again, watching the sunset. Certainly takes me back a couple of decades.”
(Petersheim and his wife, Janette, have owned the property since 2006, the county staff report noted.)
During his part of the applicants’ presentation, attorney Brockway also explained, “The property is entirely seaward of [the state’s] Coastal Construction Control Line, meaning the FDEP [Florida Department of Environmental Protection] has permitting jurisdiction over the property.” He had been told by coastal engineer Kristy Tignor, who also was representing the homeowners, that issuance of the FDEP permit “is already pending,” Brockway added.
A wall has existed at that location “at least since 1982,” Brockway pointed out. “It’s been periodically repaired and replaced over time.”
It is his understanding, he continued, that the original wall was wood; that was replaced by a concrete wall, and then that was replaced by a steel structure.
The new wall will be made of vinyl, Brockway added. “We’ve come from the literal Stone Age of seawalls to modern day here,” he said.
The plans call for cutting down the existing seawall to within 4 inches of the existing concrete walkway, he added. “The effect of that is there is going to be a wider walkway,” he noted.
The new vinyl seawall “will be installed immediately landward … of the existing seawall, Brockway said. “This is not going to result in new shoreline hardening,” he told the commissioners.
No protected habitats are in the project area, Brockway continued, and the natural rock outcropping and associated live rock in the area of Point of Rocks will not be affected.
Moreover, he said, all of the properties to the south have shoreline hardening, as well, up to an elevation of 13 feet NAVD. Therefore, the new seawall should not have an effect on them, Brockway pointed out.
Signs of deterioration of the existing seawall
One slide he showed the commissioners depicted “a significant void behind the seawall” in the southwestern corner of the property.
“Every time it rains,” Brockway explained, “there is soil being washed down through this … likely down to the Gulf.”
He also put up a slide showing the rock revetment in place to the immediate south of his clients’ Point of Rocks property.
Then Brockway provided more slides, which, he said, depicted damage to the property as a result of the 2024 hurricanes, including another “washout behind the [seawall]. … The functionality of [the wall] is severely compromised,” he noted as he referred to one of the images.
When he was on the site on May 31, Brockway explained, “You can feel that the wall is deflecting outward. It is no longer being held back into the property.” That “needs to be corrected sooner rather than later,” he stressed.
Without prompt attention, he indicated that the wall could collapse — perhaps onto beachgoers.
Then Kristy Tigner, of The Tignor Group in Sarasota, provided more details about the proposed new seawall, presenting a slide with dimensions and color coding to depict the location of the existing structure, the new seawall and the Gulf.
“If we were to try to replace this damaged wall in the same footprint,” she explained, and forgo applying for the Coastal Setback Variance [from the county], “we would be generating a massive amount of construction debris that would have to be hauled off across the roadways and end up in the county landfill. That’s not efficient and that’s not economical,” she added.
Therefore, Tignor said, “We feel like the landward solution is the best solution. This is a methodology that we’ve used on a number of seawalls in the past couple of years.”
Moreover, she told the commissioners, “We are very mindful of the beachcombers in this area. Having all of the equipment and the staging on the landward side of the existing wall … would be less dangerous for the pedestrians in the area.”
She also stressed, “There are no impacts to habitats or vegetation in this area …”
Additionally, Tigner said, in an effort to protect public safety, the project team would be coordinating closely with county staff on the undertaking.
In response to a question from Commissioner Mark Smith, Tigner explained that after the existing wall would be cut down to the elevation of the Mean High Water Line; then, concrete would be poured between the existing wall and the new one, with the result that the sidewalk will be wider.
Following both the presentation on behalf of the applicants and comments by Rigney of county staff, Commissioner Teresa Mast told Brockway that she was unfamiliar with vinyl seawalls. “It’s a very interesting concept, and I’m fascinated by it.”
His understanding, Brockway replied, is that “there are two sheets of vinyl, with concrete poured between them.”
The hope is that the structure will have a much longer life, he added, than the prior structures.
After Chair Ron Cutsinger reported that no members of the public had signed up to address the issue, Mast made the motion to approve the Coastal Setback Variance for the seawall, and Commissioner Neunder seconded it.
“A lot of great childhood memories there, Mr. Petersheim,” Neunder again addressed the owner in the audience. “Just a lot.”
The motion then passed 5-0.