Q&A with Jay Tallman

In January 2014, Ascentia Development Group officially opened sales for the luxury condominium project Aria on Gulf of Mexico Drive — one of the first projects on the Key announced post-recession. Less than a week later, 10 of the 16 units were reserved.

Jay Tallman, head of Ascentia Development Group, had confidence the time was right to begin work on a new project on the Key. As that project draws closer to completion, we talked to the experienced Longboat Key developer about the distinctive characteristics of the town and his thoughts on the future of the area.

Where are you at in the construction progress of Aria?

It's going very well. We hope to be moving our buyers in late this year. It's a very exciting project — it's fun, at this stage, to start seeing it evolve from a concrete structure into what’s going to be a very beautiful building. That's kind of where we are right now, it's starting to take shape.

This was one of the first new construction projects announced on Longboat Key after the recession. How do you know when the time is right to invest?

I've always stayed in touch with the Realtor community here in Sarasota, so I have a pretty good sense of the pulse of the market. There was definitely pent-up demand on Longboat for a new product. Of course, a property like that that's five acres, on the beach — it’s just an extraordinary opportunity. I had every confidence the market would support that project, given the long time since anything new had been built on Longboat Key and the extraordinary location and quality of this property.

What makes Longboat Key a unique environment from a developer’s perspective?

Certainly, it's a very high-end market. Longboat Key is an extraordinary place: on the Gulf, beautiful beaches, and you have the Longboat Key Club with all of its amenities. For the wealthy, that's their playground, essentially.  As such, people are willing to pay a high price for quality residences there, so that allows us to be very creative and deliver a product that is a very high style-type product. Something I love to do personally is to be involved in those types of projects. This is a real privilege to have the opportunity to develop this extraordinary project.

Are you interested in getting involved with the new town center concept the town is working on?

I'm certainly monitoring it very closely. I've had some conversations with the town and if the opportunity presents itself I'd certainly be open to it. I think it's very exciting for the town, I think it's called for and I'm keeping close tabs on that.

What does the north end of Longboat Key need to be revitalized — to become more visually appealing and attract shoppers?

I think it needs some more density up there, frankly, to get more of a critical mass up at that end of the Key. At the same time, I appreciate the fact that current residents up there — oftentimes long-term residents — want to retain the character of what they have there, which is kind of almost Old Florida seaside village. I appreciate that, but in order to support retail up there, you have to have more density. People aren't going to travel north very far to go for retail, so you're really having to draw from the immediate area. Maybe a little bit from south Anna Maria Island, but mainly, it’s that immediate area you have to look to to support retail. There's just not enough density there right now to do that, in my opinion.

As the town of Longboat Key works to update its codes, do you have any thoughts on how regulations can be rewritten to help developers in the future?

I think more of a form-based code, evolving in that direction, would be good for the town, just as it is with the city of Sarasota. There are some things in the code now that don't really make a lot of sense. For instance, the town imposes what's called a FAR ratio (floor area ratio) on multifamily projects. This is the only place I know of that places an FAR ratio on multifamily residential. That basically limits the amount of sellable square footage a developer can create on a property, which seems duplicative in the sense that they also have all their other code requirements, such as setbacks and building heights and so forth that pretty much define your building envelope anyway. So I don’t really see the point of having a FAR ratio.

That's just one of a number of things I think needs to be addressed. I shared with town staff some of my thoughts. I have to say, I think they're very open to wanting to improve the code and bring it forward to today's method of governing development — and, hopefully, a form-based code type approach.