Moore's, underground utilities on tomorrow's Town Hall agendas

Key discussions about the future of Moore’s Stone Crab Restaurant and underground utilities will take place tomorrow at Longboat Key Town Hall.

The Longboat Key Planning and Zoning Board will hear a request from Moore’s Stonecrab Restaurant to revert the zoning of the property at 800 Broadway to its original commercial zoning at its 9 a.m. meeting.

The property has been zoned residential since 2010, when the Longboat Key Town Commission agreed on a request from co-owner Alan Moore to rezone the property from commercial to residential to allow the restaurant to continue operating while allowing owners a sound financial exit strategy in case the business became unviable.

Now, Moore seeks to redevelop the 47-year-old restaurant with Sarasota restaurateurs Mark Caragiulo and Tom Leonard as investors, but the investment depends on the reversion of the property’s zoning to “In order to protect the investment in the event of a disaster such as a fire, the investors need to be assured that they can rebuild,” the application states.

The Longboat Key Town Commission will discuss how to proceed with undergrounding utilities at its regular workshop at 1 p.m.

A draft report that will be presented to the commission estimates the cost of building the island’s power poles and utilities at $42.1 million. The estimated cost of a Gulf of Mexico Drive-only project is $23.4 million.

The commission nixed an ordinance in November that would have placed a referenda on the March 10 ballot, asking voters whether to approve bonds of no more than $19 million to bury utilities along Gulf of Mexico Drive and no more than $5 million to help with costs for undergrounding utilities in individual neighborhoods.
Instead, the commission voted to direct town staff to return with information about the cost of burying utilities islandwide.

Contact Robin Hartill at [email protected].