A redevelopment plan for the Hyatt Regency Sarasota has been filed with the City of Sarasota, detailing the owner’s plans to demolish the longtime downtown hotel and build two towers in its place.
The building application calls for a mixed-use building with 224 condominiums, 166 hotel rooms, a 650-square-meter ballroom and 425 square meters of commercial space on approximately 1.8 acres at 1000 Boulevard of the Arts.
The current Hyatt property – built in 1974 – has 294 hotel rooms, a 930 square meter ballroom and a 365 square meter restaurant.
The project is being developed by KT Sarasota Bay LLC, a subsidiary of Palm Beach-based Kolter Urban, a prominent developer that also built the Ritz Carlton Residences at The Quay, The Mark, The Vue and Bayso Sarasota and is currently building the Ritz Carlton Sarasota Bay.
Kolter plans to break construction of the building into phases, although it’s not yet clear which tower will be built first. The project looked into phasing the project because it wanted to get clarity from city officials on parking requirements and the timeline for building parking garages.
The developer owns 49 parking spaces in the nearby Beau Ciel residential tower and will include these in its parking requirements, according to the development application.
A call to a Kolter representative associated with the project was not immediately answered Monday.
Detailed engineering plans show that the hotel will be built in the east 18-story tower, with the hotel portion of that tower ending at the 12th floor. The 4,700 square meters of commercial space will be located on the ground floor of the L-shaped building in the east tower on Boulevard of the Arts.
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The second tower will have 19 stories, which is entirely possible because although height limits the size of buildings, Sarasota building codes allow additional stories if certain standards are met. The building application does not specify how Kolter will get the extra story.
The tallest part of the building, a cooling tower, is over 273 feet tall, although the roof of the top residential floor appears to be 253 feet high and the parapet wall is about 260 feet high.
The redevelopment of the site will also require the felling of 208 trees, with the developer replacing 46 trees on the property. A further 168 trees are to be replaced off-site.
The estimated cost of the project is $250 million, and the development plan calls for the facility to be completed in 2026.
The project will be presented to the city’s development review committee for the first time on September 4.
