Residents make noise about condo

Brian Hunter woke up just after 6 a.m. Wednesday, and not because his alarm went off.

Hunter, a resident of the condominium at 1350 Main St. in downtown Sarasota, was stirred by the noise emanating from the site of what will become another high-rise condominium on Main Street. The commotion coming from the future home of The Jewel — heavy hammering, large spotlights — traveled down the street from the construction site at Main and Gulfstream Avenue.

Hunter, along with other residents at 1350 Main, has attempted to register his displeasure regarding the construction with the city. City staff has been responsive, he said. Still, the issue persists because the city code permits the morning construction Monday through Friday.

It also allows that construction to continue until 9 p.m. on weekdays, giving builders a 15-hour window in which to work. Regulations are stricter on weekends, when construction is allowed from 9 a.m. until 9 p.m.

“The noise is outrageous,” Hunter said. “I’ve lived in a lot of major cities — New York, L.A., even Las Vegas — and never, ever have I seen construction go until 9 p.m., let alone on Saturdays.”

That’s why, on Wednesday, more than a dozen residents of 1350 Main descended on a Development Review Committee meeting. Developers of a proposed condominium at 33 S. Palm Ave., just behind the building at 1350 Main, sought guidance on how to move forward with their project. The residents, on the other hand, hoped to avoid repeating history.

“This is an enormous project, which I assume they’ll request the same hours of operation,” Hunter said. “That’ll be another two years; that’s not livable.”

The meeting turned out to be just a blip on the radar — the DRC doesn’t offer an opportunity for public input, and the residents filed out without any real fanfare. Still, they’re keeping a close eye on the project.
For the city, the construction isn’t out of the ordinary. Tim Litchet, the city’s director of neighborhood and development services, told Hunter the hours were designed to hasten the process of building the superstructure of high-rise buildings. That part of construction, Litchet said, is generally when the most noise and traffic congestion is generated.

“These have been the allowed hours for construction under the city code ever since I have been with the city, which has been 27 years,” Litchet said in an email response to a complaint. “ … All of the high-rise construction downtown over the years has created a similar level of impact, and the building department does its best to keep the projects moving at the quickest pace possible.”

The residents acknowledged the need to get work done, but sought to reduce the hours of construction. Until that issue is addressed, Hunter said, they’ll continue to pursue change.

“People are very upset,” Hunter said. “They’re just so distraught.

Adjustment period
Controversy is nothing new for the proposed development. The 18-story, 39-unit high-rise would be built on the sites of the DeMarcay Hotel and Roth Cigar Factory, two buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Some downtown leaders seeking to preserve the historic fabric of the district hoped to find a way to stop the development. Their hopes appeared to be dashed when the owner of the property, XAC Developers, filed an application with the city to go forward with the long-dormant project in August.

The city approved a site plan for the project in 2006, valid through October 2015. Still, because the approval came under the Downtown Residential Overlay District, which has since expired, the city must first clear any changes to the plan.

Wednesday’s meeting was the first step toward those changes. City staff raised questions about a number of modifications to the original site plan, including the number of bedrooms, the estimated cost of the proposed units and the parking for nearly 2,000 square feet of retail space slated for Palm Avenue.

Bruce Franklin, a planner representing the developer at the meeting, expressed some frustration with the level of detail the city was seeking. Still, staff said extra scrutiny was necessary to maintain the approval under the Downtown Residential Overlay District.

The item garnered attention from Vice Mayor Susan Chapman, who has expressed concerns about granting DROD entitlements to changing developments. Litchet will review the proposed changes to see if they can be administratively approved as minor adjustments, but Senior Planner Courtney Mendez said the application would be thoroughly examined.

“The DROD is a completely different animal,” Mendez said. “It had a whole different set of criteria.”