Everything we know about the latest 18-story condo project proposed for downtown Sarasota
The Adagio, another towering residential project in Sarasota's growing portfolio, is in the development pipeline for downtown. Here's what we know about it:
The Adagio proposes 167 residential units and commercial space across two towers, the first stretching 18 stories and the second reaching nine stories. The development would also include 457 parking spaces dispersed throughout basement and lower-level parking areas.
The project's residences are proposed as a combination of market-rate and affordable units, with 100 market-rate condos proposed the first tower and 67 affordable apartments in the second. Local development consultant Joel Freedman and DT Sarasota Development LLC, whose listed owner is Michael Hoyt, are attached to the project.
The Adagio's proposed site lies at the intersection of Palm Avenue and Ringling Boulevard, just off the roundabout north of the Burns Court area. Its listed addresses of 1360 Ringling Blvd., 330 S. Pineapple Ave. and 301 and 303 S. Palm Ave. total 2.2 acres valued at $5.6 million, according to Sarasota County property records.
Developer DT Sarasota Development LLC cited the the Live Local Act, a state tax credit program aimed to incentivize affordable housing, to support the development at a pre-application conference with the city of Sarasota's Development Review Committee. The act requires local governments to designate multifamily projects that meet state affordable housing criteria — at least 40% of its residential units priced as attainable — as allowable uses in areas zoned for commercial, industrial or mixed-use purposes.
Attainable, in this case, is defined as 80% to 120% of the area median income — and the Adagio proposes attainable units at 120%. Sarasota County's area median household income is $77,705, according to county data.
Live Local also stipulates that local governments must allow the project to build up to the municipality's largest permissible density and up to the height of the tallest building within a mile of the proposed development. Nearby properties like The Westin and The Ritz-Carlton, each within a mile of the proposed Adagio, reach 18 stories.
The project's proposed density of around 74.5 units per acre renders it both eligible for and subject to the city's downtown density bonus program, which allocates additional height and density to projects that meet affordable housing requirements. The program will allow the Adagio to build 200 units per acre if the developer designates 15% of its bonus units as attainable housing — the local definition of which includes more criteria than the state level.
Sarasota's attainable housing guidelines require the developers to intersperse the affordable units among the market-rate units and for all units to share a common entrance, and the affordable units must be functionally indistinguishable from the market-rate units. The Adagio proposes its affordable units and market-rate units in two separate towers, so it will have to either adjust its site plan in a formal application to meet these local requirements or reduce its density so they're no longer held to those standards.
The Adagio would add another figure to Sarasota's growing skyline, with buildings like Westin and The Ritz-Carlton already to the top of the city's height parameters and future projects like The Obsidian looking to match. More downtown development has proven a daunting prospect for some local residents like Dean Scarborough, who lives at the Sansara Condominium development on Pineapple Avenue.
Scarborough told the Sarasota City Commission the Adagio's height could damage property values of smaller surrounding developments like his, and he's concerned that Live Local's height and density benefits will serve the developer without requiring enough attainable housing in return.
'The city's zoning integrity is breached,' Scarborough said during public comment at a March 3 meeting. 'Many of us bought condos in this area with the understanding that 10 stories was the maximum allowable height.
Others, however, are encouraged by the Adagio's possible contribution to downtown's vibrancy and growth. Denise Kowal has owned the Historic Burns Square Boutique Hotel, now Burns Square Historic Vacation Rentals, since 1986. The building at 531 S. Pineapple Ave. is about a quarter of a mile from the proposed Adagio, meaning Kowal would be the project's close neighbor if it's approved.
More: L.L.Bean to open first Florida store in Sarasota, Bradenton area later this spring
Kowal said she welcomes a compact structure like the Adagio as an alternative to urban sprawl. As the Burns Court area and Sarasota at large continue to grow, Kowal said she's hopeful that residences in the heart of downtown will mitigate surrounding traffic help bolster the city's character.
'Downtown, I believe, should be a place that people live and work and do cultural experiences,' Kowal said. 'Having more people living downtown is going to make it more vibrant, and that's what we all want.'
Contact Herald-Tribune Reporter Heather Bushman at hbushman@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @hmb_1013.
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: What we know about the high-rise condo project proposed for Sarasota
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Business Wire
3 days ago
- Business Wire
John B. Sanfilippo & Son, Inc. to Present and Host 1x1 Investor Meetings at the
ELGIN, Ill--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- John B. Sanflippo & Son, Inc. (NASDAQ: JBSS), today announced Jeffrey T. Sanfilippo, CEO and Michael J. Finn, Vice President and Corporate Controllerwill present at the East Coast IDEAS Investor Conference on Thursday, June 12, 2025 at The Westin Times Square in New York, NY. John B. Sanfilippo and Son, Inc.'s presentation is scheduled to begin at 2:00 p.m. ET. The presentation is webcast and can be accessed through the conference host's main website: About IDEAS Investor Conferences The mission of the IDEAS Conferences is to provide independent regional venues for quality companies to present their investment merits to an influential audience of investment professionals. Unlike traditional bank-sponsored events, IDEAS Investor Conferences are 'SPONSORED BY INVESTORS. FOR INVESTORS.' and for the benefit of regional investment communities. Conference sponsors collectively have more than $200 billion in assets under management and include: 1102 Partners, Adirondack Research and Management, Allianz Global Investors: NFJ Investment Group, Ariel Investments, Aristotle Capital Boston, Ascend Wealth Advisors, Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss, BMO Global Asset Management, Constitution Research & Management, Inc., Diamond Hill, First Wilshire Securities Management, Inc., Granahan Investment Management, Great Lakes Advisors, Greenbrier Partners Capital Management, LLC, Hodges Capital Management, Ironwood Investment Management, Keeley Teton Advisors, Luther King Capital Management, Marble Harbor Investment Counsel, North Star Investment Management, Perritt Capital Management, Punch & Associates, Shepherd Kaplan Krochuk, Westwood Holdings Group, Inc., and William Harris Investors. About John B. Sanfilippo & Son, Inc. Based in Elgin, Illinois, John B. Sanfilippo & Son, Inc. is a processor, packager, marketer and distributor of nut and dried fruit products, snack bars, and dried cheese snacks, that are sold under the Company's Fisher ®, Orchard Valley Harvest ®, Squirrel Brand ®, Southern Style Nuts ® and Just the Cheese ® brand names and under a variety of private brands.
Business Journals
5 days ago
- Business Journals
Live Local Act apartments in Miami-Dade approved (Photos)
Expand The Griffin Parkview Apartments in North Miami are proposed under the Live Local Act. MMG Equity Partners
Miami Herald
5 days ago
- Miami Herald
Do Miami Beach residents want Metromover? A new poll enters the fight
Miami Beach's elected leaders oppose extending Metromover service to South Beach — but the city's residents strongly support the county transit project, according to a new tax-funded poll. The survey comes from a county transit board that has long championed a 'Baylink' transit line connecting downtown Miami to the Beach. Conducted by Bendixen & Amandi, a Miami polling firm, the survey found 79% of Miami Beach residents support a mass-transit link to the mainland. While 40% of residents surveyed weren't aware of the $1 billion Metromover proposal, the plan had the 'strong' support of 67% of those who knew about it. The Citizens' Independent Transit Trust paid $22,500 in transportation dollars to fund the poll of 400 Beach residents about the Metromover proposal that the Miami Beach City Commission voted to oppose in early 2024. The vote followed harsh pushback against the county proposal, with Miami Beach residents of a luxury condo tower off the potential elevated transit system chanting 'Stop the Train!' at a 2023 town hall in South Beach. 'The vocal few have been very active,' said Meg Daly, a member of the county's Citizens' Independent Transportation Trust, an oversight board for Miami-Dade's half-percent transportation sales tax. The board held a May 14 workshop on the survey results, which Daly called 'very strong' and demonstrated to her that the average Miami Beach resident wants Metromover even if they're not rallying for it. 'A lot of people don't show up and speak up,' she said. Miami Beach Commissioner Alex Fernandez was the sponsor of the 2024 resolution urging Miami-Dade to pursue a rapid-transit bus line to the Beach instead of Metromover. In an interview this week, he said the survey results seem to miss some of the complexities of the debate — including concerns that a Metromover line would likely bring the kind of looser zoning rules that the county can impose around some transit lines. 'Of course we all want public transportation,' Fernandez said. 'My concern is about the upzoning it could potentially bring.' He cited Miami Beach's uphill battle against residential towers now authorized by Florida's Live Local law and said the city wouldn't want to face another zoning problem in South Beach's historic neighborhoods. Keith Marks, president of the South of Fifth Neighborhood Association, said the survey failed to present a full picture of the potential downsides for a Metromover extension from downtown Miami to where the MacArthur Causeway meets Fifth Street in South Beach. 'People are not against mass transportation,' he said. 'When they hear about the cost, the disruption and where it's gonna go specifically, they are not in favor of it.' The survey found that while most Miami Beach residents aren't using public transportation now, 65% of those polled said they'd likely use a Miami to Miami Beach Metromover route once built. Nearly half said they'd likely use it a few times a week, and 13% would use it daily. Even if it's ultimately approved, Miami-Dade remains years away from that possibility, with the latest Baylink effort already well behind the schedule the county's mayor, Daniella Levine Cava, laid out when she announced the effort in late 2022. At the time, the county was pursuing a $1.3 billion monorail line to South Beach under a plan championed by the prior mayor, Carlos Gimenez. In ditching the monorail plan for the proposed Metromover extension, Levine Cava cited rising costs from the monorail proposal and the advantages of extending a transit system that already runs throughout Miami. She and Commissioner Eileen Higgins, chair of the county's Transportation committee, announced the shift to Metromover in a joint video and promised a County Commission vote by 2024. That hasn't happened, the latest missed target in a Baylink effort that Miami-Dade started pursuing in the 1980s. In a statement, Higgins, now a candidate for mayor in the city of Miami, said the original timeline was delayed as Miami-Dade answers questions from Florida's Department of Transportation, which controls the MacArthur Causeway and other roadways around the project. 'I look forward to the State approving this project soon so we can get residents moving,' she said.
