$100 million Key Club project takes shape

Plans being pitched to community associations around Longboat Key for a future $100 million Longboat Key Club Islandside project call for a new 259-unit hotel with expanded meeting space that’s 10 to 12 stories and approximately 93 condominium/villa units that are 130-feet tall.

Delray Beach-based Ocean Properties Ltd. has not created a concept plan and doesn’t intend to begin preparing an application to the Longboat Key Planning, Zoning and Building Department until results for a special density mail-ballot only referendum ballot are announced May 12. The ballots will be mailed to property owners April 20.

The referendum will ask voters if the town may allow up to 300 new tourism units with tourism and accessory uses within certain portions of the Key Club property.

Mark Walsh, vice president of Ocean Properties, divulged some of the plans for a new project to the Longboat Observer April 8. If approved, plans call for locating all of the new development along Sarasota Bay on the south side of Longboat Club Road.

Ocean Properties also has plans to move Longboat Club Road if it receives permission from the Longboat Key Association Inc., which owns the road, to the north away from the proposed development and closer to where an Islandside driving range now sits. A dedicated left hand turn lane into the proposed hotel is also proposed, allowing Islandside residents a dedicated lane to bypass the hotel and head west toward a relocated gatehouse that will sit further west past the new hotel.

“Moving the gatehouse past the new hotel eases traffic congestion concerns from the new development,” Walsh said.

Walsh said there are future plans for the development of approximately 48 condominium units where The Chart House and other businesses now sit, but that development won’t come to fruition for many years.

“We don’t have the ability to cancel longterm leases on that property, so we have to let those run their course,” Walsh said. “That development is years down the line.”

The hotel’s approximate location will replace Islandside tennis courts along New Pass and future condominiums will be built west of the hotel.

In total, Walsh said his company will spend approximately $100 million to build the project.

“We’ve already spent more than $10 million on Key Club golf courses and upgrades since we’ve been here,” Walsh said.  “We have a lot more we want to do to make it better for guests and members. Our commitment to this area is longterm.”

For more information on the project and details about the referendum, pick up a copy of next week's Longboat Observer. 

Contact Kurt Schultheis at [email protected].