Bay Park restaurant moves closer to construction

City planners review preliminary designs. The Pachotas’ Venice Pier Group is set to manage it.

By Gretchen Cochran

Host: The restaurant in The Bay Park—that’s the growing green space on the bayshore near downtown Sarasota—is moving closer to construction. Gretchen Cochran reports.

Gretchen Cochran: It’s The Bay Park’s fourth birthday. Party-goers can enjoy 70 free activities, including a kayak paddle among the mangroves, Salsa at Sunrise, or take a pleasant stroll among the lush vegetation. It also coincides with the park getting a bit closer to the construction of the first full-service restaurant in the 55-acre-park that’s under construction around Van Wezel Performing Arts Center.

Early restaurant drawings came before the City of Sarasota’s Development Review Committee Wednesday in a pre-planning conference where planners from various departments weighed in with particular concerns and guidance. They ranged from electrical, waste and potable water management to tree removal and replacement and retention of public access to the shoreline, among many other things.

Diana Shaheen is the Bay’s chief operating officer. She explains the lengthy process.

Diana Shaheen, chief operating officer of The Bay | Photo courtesy of The Bay

Diana Shaheen: This is the first step—to go through the standard city development process to get the new restaurant moving forward in the process. We are having a pre-application meeting. That’s what tomorrow is called. After that, we take their feedback, and we do a community workshop. After that, we prepare and submit an administrative site plan for the restaurant. Then that goes to the DRC after that.

GC: The dining place is still unnamed, so for now, it is called the “10th Street Restaurant” for its would-be location, where 10th Street crosses Tamiami and ends at the shoreline. It is proposed to be almost 5,000 square feet, about the size of a full basketball court. Drawings show it as a rectangle with its longest side spreading along the bayshore with patios on three sides. The shorter side to the north would face Centennial Park and overlook the canal leading to the boat ramp. The short side to the south would face the park and possibly a new performing arts center.

One whole section of the preliminary plan deals with tree removal and replacement. “No tree may be removed until a tree removal permit is approved,” it says. 24 trees are proposed for removal, including 19 palms and one live oak. All are to be replaced, plus one.

Neighbors in surrounding high rises are particularly concerned about their bay views. This building’s roofline would be 26 feet above the ground, but a “decorative aluminum screen” to hide mechanical equipment would add nine more feet.

The building would be clad in a coral stone veneer and follow the lines of the Sarasota School of Architecture, featuring open floor plans and floor-to-ceiling glass walls and sliding panels.

Attached to the drawings were a few pages of interest that were not discussed at the Development Review Committee meeting. They dealt with such things as “naming rights” and the relationship with the city.

A curious clause dealt with the cumbersome permit process. “The city agrees to process approval and permitting in a cost-effective, expeditious and efficient manner.”

Justin Pachota, president of the Venice Pier Group

The Venice Pier Group of Sharky’s fame is expected to manage the restaurant in a profit-sharing vendor’s arrangement. Venice Pier Group is owned by the Pachota family. The father, Nick, is currently mayor of Venice and running for State House in Sarasota’s southern district. A son, Justin Pachota, is the president, and he is advising on kitchen design.

Details of the restaurant finances are not yet finalized, Pachota and Shaheen said.

DS: As the park grows, our revenue to operate this park is going to be—a significant portion is going to come from revenue from food and beverage on the site and revenue from renting the various buildings on the site that we manage for the city. That was part of the going economics of the Bay Park project. So he will. There will be an agreement between the Bay Park Conservancy and Venice Pier Group that will be based on their annual revenue, and it will be based on that revenue growing over time, and then we get a certain percentage of it.

GC: Shaheen offered a long view of how the park’s finances will be managed in the future.

DS: Today, it costs us between $2 million and $2.5 million dollars to do everything in this park. Over time, when the park is fully built out and there are hopefully three restaurants and, recall, we—the Bay Park Conservancy—manage for the city a municipal auditorium, Bay Front Community Center on the back side of it, the Blue Pagoda and the Garden Club and the lawns north of the municipal auditorium. We rent those out. Those revenues from rentals coupled with a percentage of the revenues from food and beverage should—we’re hoping—pay for about 50% of our going operating expenses after the park’s built out.

GC: The restaurant process may seem long. Pachota estimates we might be able to enjoy a sunset supper there in about a year.

For WSLR, this is Gretchen Cochran.

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