$800 million hotel, condo project moves toward 2024 completion

One of the largest construction projects in the region, the Residences at the St. Regis Longboat Key, is playing out like an orchestra of materials, manpower and managed chaos. The $800 million, two-and-a-half-year-long project is the largest on Longboat since Arvida started shaping the Key in the 1970s, according to the Longboat Observer, sister paper of the Business Observer. 

In total, five buildings are working their way through construction. There’s a five-story hotel on the north end of the property, three five-story condo buildings on the south side of the property and a single-floor amenities building in between. The project is on a 17.6-acre lot of the previous home of the Colony Beach and Tennis Resort, an iconic property that closed in 2010. The project is scheduled for completion in 2024. 

Photo by Lauren Tronstad

One interesting note on construction logistics: About 500 workers show up to the site each day, but in lieu of not making traffic more congested in the area and a lack of parking on the lot, workers park in a garage on nearby St. Armands Circle and then take a shuttle to the work site. 

Other data points for the project include: 

• 6,500 tons of reinforcing rebar, which is the equivalent of about 538 school buses 
• 850 window openings budgeted at about $9 million 
• 166 hotel rooms 
• 69 condominiums, which range in size from 1,553 square feet to 5,895 square feet
• 29 elevators 
• 42 bodies of water, which include private pools 
• Four water features including a saltwater lagoon, hotel pool and a lazy river
• $4 million planned for spending on light fixtures 
• 70,000 cubic yards of concrete. That’s enough to fill 21 olympic-sized swimming pools