Developer proposes second luxury residence tower on waterfront site

Another residential tower could be coming to the Quay Sarasota site along the bayfront.

The City of Sarasota's Development Review Committee recently reviewed plans for Bayso, an 18-story, 150-unit building slated for the south end of the property at U.S. 41 and Fruitville Road. Units in the building will range from 1,600 to 4,000 square feet, with prices starting at $800,000.

City staff offered some technical feedback to the initial site plan at a June 17 meeting, according to a story in the Sarasota Observer, sister paper of the Business Observer. Planning Director Steve Cover was mostly positive about the proposal and encouraged the developer to consider more ambitious designs for landscaping and screening the building’s parking garage.

“You really have an opportunity to do something spectacular here, since this is part of the main entrance to the Quay site,” Cover said, according to the Sarasota Observer. 

The Kolter Group is the developer behind the Bayso project. The Kolter Group is responsible for another high-rise on the Quay site: The Ritz-Carlton Residences, an 18-story, 73-unit building on the waterfront north of The Ritz-Carlton, Sarasota. Kolter also developed The Mark, an 11-story mixed-use project at State Street and Lemon Avenue.

“We think we’re very well positioned in terms of size of our units and price point,” Kolter Urban Regional President Brian Van Slyke said.  “Some of our competition in Sarasota is offering larger units for sale, but we think we’ll be filling a need in a currently underserved market.”

In February, the city’s Planning Board approved plans for a 12-story building with 241 apartments and 12,750 square feet of ground floor retail on blocks two and three of the Quay site, which fronts U.S. 41 north of Fruitville Road.