Five Points mixed-use project in Sarasota nears staff approval

Redevelopment of the Zenith tower at Five Points inched closer to approval as the city’s Development Review Committee issued partial sign-off on Oct. 16 for the plan to replace the 12-story office building and parking garage with a mixed-use development.

Partial sign-off means the project need not appear again before the entire committee but rather may pursue complete sign-off with individual staff project reviewers.

Developer Jebcore Z Tower of Sarasota, a subsidiary of Jebcore Companies, is pursuing administrative approval on the split-zoned site to build an 18-story tower that will include 96 dwelling units — seven of which to be designated as affordable under the city’s downtown attainable housing density bonus — and 41,837 square feet of commercial and office space. 

The 18-story portion of the project will be built in the portion of the property zoned downtown Bayfront.

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The 1.18-acre site is at the southwest quadrant of the roundabout at Main Street, Pineapple Avenue and Central Avenue. It lies in both the Downtown Bayfront and Downtown Core zone districts, and no requested rezoning.

With dozens of comments remaining unresolved, though, a plan to redevelop a portion of Midtown Plaza at 1299 S. Tamiami Trail will require a third submission. Owner Midtown Associates and principal Gavin Meshad are seeking site plan approval to redevelop 5.57 of the 7.51-acre site to replace approximately 45,860 square feet of commercial space with a 145-room hotel, 91-unit apartment building, 5,800 square feet of retail, and a three-story parking structure.

Much of the commercial space had been occupied by a Winn-Dixie grocery store that closed in 2018 and has been vacant since.

The remainder of Midtown Plaza, which includes Michael’s On East, will not be affected by the redevelopment project.

Meanwhile, on North Tamiami Trail, Modera Sarasota, at the 1700 block, had its first appearance before the DRC with a request for rezoning without site plan approval the 3.28-acre property, currently the site of the former Sunshine Inn & Suites plus adjacent vacant property. The street addresses include 1750, 1716 and 1770 N. Tamiami Trail; and 1232 18th St.

The application has received partial sign-off.

The site is zoned Residential Multiple Family and located with the North Trail Overlay District with a future land use designation of Urban Mixed-Use 3, which is only available in the NTOD. That permits a base density of 35 residential units per acre, a maximum bonus density of 105 units per acre if 15% of those bonus units are priced as attainable, and a maximum height of four stories, up to five stories if affordable housing thresholds are met. 

The property owner is listed as MCRT Investments of Orlando.

This story was updated to correct the description of the Zenith redevelopment.