The Mark kicks off sales

Fresh from its success in selling high-end units at its Vue Sarasota Bay condo and hotel complex in Sarasota, The Kolter Group is embarking on another downtown residential project.

The Mark, a 12-story project with 157 residences and 46,000 square feet of retail and office space, is a re-imagined version of a similar mixed-use project envisioned on the same land a decade ago, Pineapple Square.

Unlike Pineapple Square, however, Mark residential units will not be subject to a land lease with the First United Methodist Church in Sarasota, a provision Kolter Urban president Bob Vail says is a significant distinction.

The new project designed by Sarasota's Hoyt Architects will, however, include the closing of a section of down town Sarasota's State Street.

Kolter, a Palm Beach-based firm that is also developing the 41-story One St. Petersburg mixed-use project, hopes to complete the Mark by the end of 2018.

“This is part of a lifestyle in which you can walk everywhere downtown,” says Michael Saunders, whose real estate brokerage firm is marketing Mark's units. “Downtown becomes your living room.”

Vail says that unlike most developers, Kolter doesn't plan to wait to receive commitments on 50% or more of its Mark units before starting construction. At Vue, for instance, only 20% were pre-sold; in St. Petersburg, only 35% of the One's units were spoken for before ground was broken -- six months ahead of an originally scheduled date.

“People like to see the building going up,” Vail says. “And the market here has been steady, and there's a strong history of condo ownership in Sarasota.”

Kolter is so bullish on Sarasota that it is also working on a third residential development, on a pad site adjacent to the Ritz-Carlton Sarasota hotel.