San Marco alters entrance options

LAKEWOOD RANCH — For years, business owners in San Marco Plaza have been wrestling with how to make the plaza — and its large parking area — more accessible.

And, late last month, they took action on the concept.

Bill Mariotti Site Development is wrapping up work on a new entrance for the plaza off Town Center Parkway. The addition will provide a new primary access for the plaza, which currently has two entrances off Natures Way.

“If you look at the way the entire area was designed, originally, Town Center Parkway is a main thoroughfare,” said Carmen Spagnola, owner of Winestyles and president of the San Marco Plaza Land Condo Association. “When the original designers laid out this plaza, they put in a beautiful parking lot for the plaza on (the Town Center side), with no entrance or exit. It’s a design issue that got missed.”

Spagnola hopes the new entrance, which should be open to the public by Easter, will help re-orient the plaza so patrons can park and then walk to businesses. It also should provide easier access to the banks in the plaza.

Spagnola said the Land Condo Association also plans to re-do landscaping along the Town Center Parkway entrance and also to construct a larger new sign to welcome patrons. Both projects, he hopes, will be finished by the end of 2013.

“In our opinion, it should have always been (this) way,” Spagnola said of the new design.”

Contact Pam Eubanks at [email protected].