Pineapple Beach Neighborhood Association held its meeting last night at South Grade Elementary School with Pam Bergsma, President, presiding. Its guest speaker was Steven Michael of Hudson Holdings, the company that recently bought the Gulfsream Hotel. Mr. Michael was enthusiastic and proud to own this historic hotel and we are very lucky to get a company of this quality coming into our city to restore it.
Phase 1 will begin with the interior demolition expected to be completed by the end of 90 days. They plan on leaving the hallways intact and preserve as many historical features as possible such as the lights and floors. It will have 97 rooms with a two story lobby. The roof-top nightclub, being designed by an architect from Atlanta, will be enclosed with glass in order to insulate the sound and it will have some sort of roof enclosure. There will be a fine dining restaurant, a spa and pool deck and up to 10-15,000 square feet of retail. He anticipates that the hotel will be opened in about 14 months.
In phase 2, the plans are for building a 4 story 250 car parking garage on the vacant lot as well as a 60 foot addition that will have another 75 rooms/apartments. There is no start date projected for this phase.
Speaking to the audience Mr. Michael said, "You are our partners." After the meeting, and in order to not make it political or the least bit uncomfortable for Mr. Michael (even though his firm gave $1,500 to the YES Pac in the recent bond referendum that lost at the polls), he was given a paper by a concerned resident explaining the circumstances of the heights referendum of March 2013 where 56% of the voters said no more than 45 feet could be built in that area.
An excerpt from that paper:
"In 2014, the Commission went to court to fight against placing this amendment in the City Charter and based their case on a 2013 Florida Statute that impermissibly included an ex post facto condition extending it back to 2011. The case has not been adjudicated. Ex post facto legislation makes a law effective from a date prior to its enactment, and is expressly forbidden by both the Federal Constitution and the Florida Constitution.
The proscription against ex post facto legislation has always been applicable to Criminal cases and is now extending to Civil cases, particularly when people’s rights are infringed upon. In this case, the rights of the voters to limit the heights in their city and environment are being squashed by this legislation.
The Charter has been footnoted to indicate this basis for not amending our Charter, probably as a caution to prospective developers to proceed at their own risk."
16 comments:
Who was the concerned citizen? Some one else from your group that never want to see this city get ahead? And no Lynn I am on neither side, but something has to be done to rise this city up, and every time anyone comes up with a suggestion you use this blog to say NO COMPROMISE. It's getting old.
Why not come up with a plan that Everyone can agree with, instead of alway's saying NO.
Winning an election, anonymous, is just that. There is NO compromise when you win an election. The only thing that we all should agree on here is that heights were voted on to be 45 feet and 35 feet downtown. PERIOD.
Now you have something AGAINST DEMOCRACY? Where ever do you "terrorists" come from? :)
The comment comes from a concerned citizen who is familiar with the rule of law, the results of a democratic election, and the preservation of neighborhoods as well as the wonderful proposal to renovate the Gulfstream in addition to expanding our Casino ballroom so that the beach will finally be a financial asset
Those who resort to name calling and categorizing others who express valid but different opinions from theirs show the limits of their evolution.
I was waiting for it to be adjudicated. I really wanted a Judge to get his hands on all the evidence and make a ruling.
There was just such a suit filed but for some unknown reason, it was dropped. We were told that the full reason would be made abundantly clear why it was dropped but that never came to be.
It is just THIS proposal that is reason many of us wanted the ability to build a like sized addition if it would help make the historic structure more appealing in this industry. It made sense then and does now.
Let's just hope your well meaning "concerned citizen" and the rest of your group don't succeed in scaring this group off. Maybe something good will happen in that area finally.
Put his ideas to the voters for just his project and see what the outcome is. I feel confident intelligence will prevail.
Well, intelligence DID prevail. The voters spoke.
The new owners will not be deterred by this height limitation. They won't be "scared off" as they BOUGHT THE PLACE. It will only mean a little less profit to realize from his investment. The will of the people is far more important than any other consideration.
oh no, anony at 1:38, is this the mayor speaking? Why didn't you honer the vote of the people/What is wrong with you?
Whoever wrote the information for this developer to ponder sounds more than just intelligent, anonymous above. It sounds like a lawyer wrote it. Four stories is enough.
This commission is not interested in the residents,,,they want to suppress the people in every way possible,,,Never have seen anything like this group but it is getting that way in politics everywhere. If this commission even understands one thing they vote on it would surprise me.
Why not send the letter in the mail?
If everyone is so unhappy with this commission why was their No one running against them in the last election.
I think most people would vote in favor of a hotel district or a hotel waiver for this particular project.
The problem is, the heights amendment addresses what is a global concern of many and that is too tall buildings, out of place and out of scale for their surroundings. More of the Lucerne so to speak (a ginormous building that sticks out like a sore thumb in our beautiful downtown area). I'd also point to the mostly empty office building on 2nd ave. North which towers over the small historic cottages that abut it.
If we could rely on P&Z and the Historic Preservation board to make appropriate zoning decisions then the height amendment wouldn't have been necessary. The problem is, long term residents have seen the problematic results out of our boards, anything goes. Oh you own a quaint historic home within two blocks of Lucerne and Lake, too bad if you don't want a 6 story building next door, no one at the City is going to watch out for you. Hence the voters spoke.
All said and done. Nice meeting and informative for those who attended. I like it that they are forthcoming with what they want and willing to share. No doubt City commissioners made promises that probably shouldn't have and may not be able to keep. For the most part, this is a respectable plan and hope they are sucessful. Just wish they would stay out of politics, which is hard to do with some of those hardliners, like Loretta. No telling what kind of pressure they are under and lies they were told.
Amen, with dumbos like Wes B and Rice on the boards then this greedy commission too, this city is in real danger. We need to really push for better people being put on these boards, not people who have agendas like rice and blackman, vote our all these clowns and take back our city. God rice cannot even maintain his dump of a property at 1306 and 1320 Lucerne, you know he has an agenda. How sad for us and the citizens.
"If we could rely on P&Z and the Historic Preservation board to make appropriate zoning decisions then the height amendment wouldn't have been necessary. The problem is, long term residents have seen the problematic results out of our boards, anything goes. Oh you own a quaint historic home within two blocks of Lucerne and Lake, too bad if you don't want a 6 story building next door, no one at the City is going to watch out for you. Hence the voters spoke."
A-street farmstead news -Headline-Orphan piglet searches for father. Fears he may have become bacon,,,
@4:45 above--Because NO one wants to run in this dysfunctional city. When you have a commission that is supported by half the voters because they don't know any better and these people can malign you right and left, not honor elections, etc., who would want to run? This job is way too tough for any lay person. Right now we have a commission that won't even follow its own policy or even ask questions. they don't want to hear from you nor do their supporters. A dictatorship is fine with them and that's hard to overthrow.
Lynn and diego, I fear you are both correct. Bringing back the Gulfstream is a great idea, and so is buying up some of those crap motels on Federal and Dixie. But you've got to look at what these guys tried to do in Delray with the Sundy House. They didn't get as far as they originally wanted to because of pressure from the citizens. I don't know the Hudson Holdings folks personally, but I do know people that do. They could be completely wrong, but they get the impression that these guys think Lws politicians are a bunch of rubes. I'm all for progress, but we should be really careful.
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