May 12 will be opponents’ last chance to make their case.
By Gretchen Cochran and Ramon Lopez
Original Air Date: April 23, 2025
Host: A decision on a controversial skyscraper project has been delayed—because of a missing green-yellow sign. Gretchen Cochran explains.
Gretchen Cochran: The showdown scheduled to happen Monday didn’t, all because of a little sign. So Sarasota’s proposed tallest building yet, called the Obsidian, will not have its next appearance before the city commissioners for three weeks.
The Obsidian’s successor, 1260 North Palm Residences, is only a few feet shorter. Even so, it faced much less pushback from city planners.
The didn’t-wanna-be neighbors had their red t-shirts. The lawyers were ready, as was Ron Shapiro. He’s the de facto leader of the Bay Plaza collaborative convened over two years to fight what downtowners fear could be the forerunner of “slabscrapers” crammed into the bayfront, obstructing views and even robbing the sidewalks of sunlight.
This was to have been the opponents’ last chance to stop approval of the 18-story building. The planning board and the commissioners had approved it. Now, the neighbors have filed an appeal. Both the neighbors and the builders have said a ruling not in their favor will head to court, so procedure is important.
When the city prepares to make a change on a property, it is required to post a sign on the property alerting passersby.
City Commissioner Jen Ahearn Koch explains:
Jennifer Ahearn-Koch
Jennifer Ahearn-Koch: It’s to make the general public aware. It’s about process. That’s regulated as well. It’s about—I’m going to guess—two feet by three feet—it’s fairly large. Yellow or green. I think one is commission, one is planning board. These are public hearings, and the public needs to be involved. I am overly cautious in including the public. If this is going to have one more person more knowledgable about what’s going on, then that’s what we need to be doing as a city. We need to be transparent, and we need to make sure that the citizens know what’s going on in their city.
GC: This time, the sign did not get posted due to some confusion about the requirements of posting for an appeal, Joe Polzak, the city attorney, said. The language will be clarified for future such cases, he added.
Shapiro and his people had been ready to go.
Ron Shapiro: I, initially, was kind-of let down because we had done a lot of work in anticipation of this and thought we were as ready as we ever could be. But now that I’ve had a little time to reflect on it, I think that the delay has some pros and cons. I think the city did the right thing by recognizing their error. If I was in their shoes, I would probably have voted to postpone it as well.
The building would tower over adjacent properties like the Bay Plaza.
GC: Shapiro is a retired chemical engineer, having worked for Proctor & Gamble in research and development. Precision and long-range thinking are innate.
In the big scheme of things, a three-week delay is small for a case going on for two and a half years, he said. But this little glitch is about more than a little sign and a few days. It’s about preparing for the courtroom.
The opponents claim that the planned development exhibits clear run-arounds of code standards like compatibility to surroundings, but the developer insists height additions, like the “interstitial space” are industry standards.
By a 4-1 vote, the Sarasota Planning Commission approved the planned 14-unit, 342-foot luxury condo tower. The city regulates buildings’ heights by the number of floors. But the developer is using uninhabited space between floors to boost the height and make the would-be Obsidian the tallest building in downtown Sarasota.
Both sides have said, should they not prevail, they will head to court. They will face off first May 13 at City Hall.
Reporting for WSLR News, Gretchen Cochran and Ramon Lopez.
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