Group files site plan for beachfront hotel

SARASOTA — Ocean Properties Hotels Resorts & Affiliates has filed more detailed plans with Sarasota officials to revamp and expand its Sandcastle Hotel on Lido Key Beach.

The company's plan would add 128 new rooms to the existing 176-room beachfront hotel, along with 20,000 square feet of meeting and restaurant space. Plans call for the existing 64-year-old hotel to be razed and replaced with a pair of towers, rising nine and 10 floors, respectively.

Ocean Properties also is seeking to rezone the six-acre property and eliminate a pair of existing driveways, according to a site plan that has been filed.

The company, which bought the former Helmsley hotel in February 2014 for $27.4 million, hopes to complete the redevelopment in 2019.

Sarasota's Development Review Committee is expected to consider Ocean Properties' proposal for the 1540 Benjamin Franklin Drive property in mid-August. Hearings before the City Commission could occur as early as November.

The new Sandcastle hotel is being designed by Nichols Brosch Wurst Wolfe & Associates Inc.

“It's a very contemporary design,” says Bruce Franklin, president of Land Resource Strategies, the real estate consulting firm working with Ocean Properties on the proposal.
“It's very well thought out, with every room having a Gulf-front view.”

In all, Ocean Properties owns more than 100 hotels containing 17,000 rooms throughout North America, according to its website.

In Florida, the company owns the Lido Beach Resort; The Resort at the Longboat Key Club; Zota on Longboat Key; Sanibel Island Beach Resort; the Edgewater Beach Hotel, in Naples; and the Holiday Inn Lido Beach, among other hospitality properties.