Beneficial ready to build Sarasota apartments

After more than a year of obtaining approvals and readying the site, Sarasota-based Beneficial Communities and Winter Park developer Tom Settle are preparing to go vertical with an apartment complex in Sarasota County near Interstate 75.

The 50 Paramount Apartments, as they will be known, will be built on Paramount Drive adjacent to a pair of office buildings that once housed accounting and consulting giant Arthur Andersen before its implosion in the Enron Corp. scandal.

The 284-unit garden-style complex, which will have a resort pool and a host of other modern amenities, should be completed in about a year, Settle says.

Rents are slated to range from $1,100 a month to about $1,800 per month, to start.

The project has been a relatively long time coming. Beneficial and Settle acquired the 9-acre site in September 2014 for $1.9 million.

“It's a great location, and the people who will live there will be close to a lot of different things like shopping and the highway and amenities,” says Mike Migone, the SVN Commercial Advisory Group agent who sold the land to Beneficial and Settle. “I think they'll do really well there.”