New signs approved for Key Club

The Resort at Longboat Key Club is preparing to spend about $100,000 on signage, a furtherance of its project to reinvent the entrance to the south-end community.

Construction crews began rerouting the south entrance to the Resort at Longboat Key Club on April 9.

The Resort at Longboat Key Club is still targeting Thanksgiving of this year for completing this project, said General Manager Jeff Mayers in an interview, a goal which he hopes construction crews will meet.

“It’s going to definitely be an upgrade to the arrival experience to those residents who live behind the gates,” Mayers said.

While this project was framed by Ocean Properties counsel John Patterson as an “in-furtherance” of a project to build a new 300-room hotel on the Key Club property late this past year, Mayers said there has been no further discussion about a new building since it was approved by voters in a 2015 referendum.

Mayers said progress has been going as planned as new foliage has been planted along the now defined path of the new route for Longboat Club Drive.

“It is coming together,” Mayers said.

This sign is not beholden to the strict sign codes passed earlier this year — which limited temporary signs to one or three square feet — because its been permitted as a fixed, permanent sign. 

An application for the project submitted last fall shows the roadway lined by palm trees — oak trees edge the drive now. Developers hope to redesign the entrance with a new sign, water feature and columns surrounded by seasonal plants.

Developers have also proposed a left-turn lane into the southern parcel before a new gatehouse, a turn lane that leads to what are now unused tennis courts.

The Planning and Zoning Board in May approved construction plans for the Resort at Longboat Key Club to allow for the club to rebuild its cart barn and move its driving range north to make space for a rerouted Longboat Club Road.