By Peg Davis, News-Leader

Zev Cohen & Associates shows 78 parcels make up the "Sadler node" or "corridor" and the Atlantic Avenue "node" that could be redeveloped. Zev Cohen says "76 percent of land has potential for redevelopment" along Sadler and "84 percent of land has potential for redevelopment" at Atlantic/South Fletcher. Source: City of Fernandina Beach

A proposal to develop a commercial "tourist/resort corridor" leading to the beaches from

Sadler Road, Atlantic Avenue and South Fletcher Avenue was first broached publicly Wednesday - though the public wasn't informed of it.

The city Planning Advisory Board heard a preliminary proposal from new Community Development Director Marshall McCrary that could lead to larger buildings and more dense development along Sadler, Atlantic and South Fletcher near two main city beach parks.

Lupita McClenning, former chief city planner who now works for Zev Cohen & Associates, and some property owners would like the city to fast-track traffic studies of the areas in hopes of increasing the size of buildings allowed on the properties.

The proposal was put forward as part of McCrary's staff report, not as an agenda item for planning board. Neither of the two agenda items mentioned what turned out to be an hour-long discussion of the beach corridor redevelopment.

Planning board member Bob Howat remarked that since the matter was not a formal agenda item a detailed discussion and decision "under the guise of a staff report" was not appropriate.

"We should hear from the entire population. ... The format has to be open to the entire city," Howat said.

But board Chair Mark Bennett did not stop the discussion, and attorney Valerie Faltemier - sitting in for just departed city attorney Debra Braga - did not object.

McClenning told the planning board she met previously with McCrary about the idea of expediting the traffic study. "We wanted to get direction from the board," she said.

McClenning told the board the study would involve traffic in the vicinity of 78 parcels totaling 51 acres.

A slide presentation prepared by Zev Cohen concludes that "76 percent of land has potential for redevelopment" along Sadler and "84 percent of land has potential for redevelopment" in the Atlantic/South Fletcher area.

But one limit on the intensity of development allowed is the maximum "floor area ratio," which is lower for commercial properties outside downtown Fernandina Beach. The city could change that with an overlay for the two areas.

Traffic studies are needed because the state Department of Community Affairs requires the city to demonstrate that raising the floor area ratio can be justified by a capacity to handle more traffic.

A citywide study could take months, however. "Knowing that time is of the essence ... do you want to wait until a full-blown study of the city is done?" McCrary asked the planning board, or "do you want to just look at one area or some areas of the city?"

Lowell Hall, representing the Myrtle Hall Trust, which owns the southwest corner of Sadler Road and South Fletcher Avenue, asked the board to hurry the Sadler study, even offering to pay for it. "I do have a clock ticking," Hall said.

Hall had plans for a hotel on his corner, but is currently restricted to a 6,033-square-foot building.

"First of all, I'm real in favor of intense development in certain areas," said planning board member David Beal. "Development needs to be grouped. . . . Let's go ahead and look at these two areas where we need to be more intense."

Beal noted there are three hotels in the Sadler Road area already, with more on the way. Marriott has plans for a hotel west of the Amelia Trace assisted living facility on the north side of Sadler Road. Another hotel is planned for property west of the Cedar River Seafood restaurant south of Sadler Road.

"Isn't it true if you just study this one little segment it would turn out more favorable?" asked board member Marilyn Williamson about the traffic study.

"Of course," replied McCrary, adding that the city's current levels of service are in the comprehensive plan. "(But) my preference would be to do the whole city."

"We are a whole lot more informed now than we were before," said member Eric Bartelt after the board decided that McCrary should provide it with more material and place the item on a future agenda.

"I'd prefer to come back," said McCrary. "I just wanted to get the ball rolling tonight."

McCrary was promoted to his new job last week. He has been with the city eight months, moving from senior planner to interim director after director Jeffrey Salter quit in March.

 

News-Leader

Fernandina Beach Commissioners will consider whether to approve three hotels proposed for the Sadler Road and South Fletcher Avenue area, including one where Hall's Beach Store is now and another just north of Slider's restaurant.

Proposed hotels

-- Sadler Estates Subdivision, 3.1 acres east of Drury Road and northwest of Amelia Trace Court, 150-room full-service hotel with restaurant, Paul Charles Burns, Mark and Dixie Manning, owners

-- The Cabanas, 1.11 acres off First Avenue and Sadler Road, 30-room hotel, Lamar and Nancy Corley, Sharon and Lowell Hall and Myrtle Hall, owners.

-- Seaside Lodges, 1.53 acres at 1940 South Fletcher Ave. just north of Sliders restaurant, three-lodge concept with 15 to 18 suites, Frank Kuitems of Phoenix Investments, owner.

The city's Planning Advisory Board and planning staff have recommended approval of the applications, which included requests for conditional use and special use permits and rezoning.

The planning board voted unanimously to approve a conditional use and zoning change for Sadler Estates, a 150-room full service hotel and restaurant near Amelia Trace Court. Property owners sought to combine four lots and expand a conditional use, granted for a hotel in 1996, to include all parcels.

The board voted 5-2 to recommend conditional use approval for The Cabanas, a 30-room hotel where Hall's Beach Store and the Hammerhead bar is now.

It also voted 5-2 to approve conditional and special use permits for Seaside Lodges, a 15- to 18-suite three-lodge project on the beach adjacent to Slider's.

Board Chair Mark Bennett and Vice Chair Paul Condit voted against the Cabanas and Seaside applications.

We have three applications today that revolve around hotels on Sadler, all within a one-mile circle," Condit said. "Does this create overcapacity?"

Condit asked if a market study or other data could show that more than 200 rooms are needed in the area.

Full hotel capacity is not currently used, he said, based on what he has observed at one hotel near the proposed sites.

"What happens around here is that everybody competes for the same pool. It drags people from one place to the other," Condit said. "The strip malls are doing this. They're taking people out of downtown."

If the Hampton Inn downtown is no longer able to attract guests, he said, "It would make this place a ghost town . . . So I have some real anxiety about adding 200-plus rooms in this area."

"Whether or not the marketplace can accommodate hotel rooms is really not your planning advisory job," attorney Jeffrey Tomassetti told the board.

Tomassetti represents O & S Development, potential buyer for Sadler Estates. The proposed project is a full-service "bridge between the high-end resort marketplace and the drive-in, stay the night and leave" market, with an on-site restaurant, Tomassetti said.

But the planning board's responsibility "is to understand in total what the impact of all this is on the island," Condit said.

Noise and traffic near the roundabout "is extreme," said Lynn Williams, a resident of South Fletcher Avenue. "I certainly think that you can look at it from the standpoint of what the impact of traffic is," he said, adding, "Three hotels, down in that corner, all funneling in and out of the roundabout, will make a mess."

According to the planning staff reports, none of the proposed projects will "create or excessively increase traffic congestion or otherwise affect public safety."

Nassau County's latest traffic concurrency spreadsheet indicates the projects have enough evening peak hour trips remaining "before falling below its adopted level of service," the report said.

"Downstream" the pattern of converting hotels into condominium hotels or entirely into condominiums, "might well hold here," Williams said.

Because the Sadler Estates property is not in the coastal high hazard area, there is no need "to have worries about residential development," Tomassetti said. "This is a genuine hotel with a restaurant . . . with no intention to convert to anything."

"We look to the future 20 and 30 years out and we have that responsibility to do that," board member Bill Conger said.

"You put three lodging arrangements within a couple hundred yards of each other. Does that have a tendency to all of a sudden start getting to be like Ocean City, Md., . . . or Virginia Beach?" he said.

"We have the responsibility for the health, welfare and safety of the citizens of . . . the city, which is certainly half of the island," Conger said. "We need not just look at today. We have to look down the line."

The proposals for The Cabanas and Seaside Lodges were presented by Lupita McClenning of Zev Cohen & Associates, a planning firm hired by the owners. McClenning is an alternate member of the city planning board. She did not vote on the proposals.
 

By Glenda S. Jenkins, News-Leader
gjenkins@fbnewsleader.com

For seven months now I have been worried that the proposal to build yet another three-story hotel on Sadler Road might somehow, against all reason and common sense, get the green light by our city representatives.

I was worried in January when it first appeared on the Planning Advisory Board's (PAB) schedule, but the city removed the matter from that meeting. It seems they had not sent out notification letters to residents affected by the proposed project, as they were required to do.

I was also worried the following month, when it was listed as one of the matters to be discussed at February's PAB meeting. At that meeting, a large contingency of concerned citizens was turned away two hours into the process when the developer was allowed to "table" his application at literally the last minute (it would appear the applicant didn't like the "lay of the land" at that meeting).

My worries continued in March when the Sadler hotel project was once again scheduled to go before the PAB. One day before the scheduled meeting the developer "withdrew" his application. The city staff report, which is prepared by the Planning Department and is available to the public on the city's web site, had recommended to the PAB that they disapprove the applicant's request. It would seem that since once again things weren't going his way, the applicant withdrew his application and the matter was removed from the schedule for the third time.

We then have a dry spell for two months (no worries) in which there was no sign of the developer or his application. Was it possible that the developer had finally gone away? Hardly. The developer seems to have been diligently working behind the scenes, since he and his hotel proposal are now back. Incredibly the Sadler Hotel issue showed up yet again on the PAB's June 8 scheduled meeting.

There's a twist this time though. The city Planning Department has now decided this is a great idea and is recommending to the PAB that the developer be allowed to go forward with the construction of his hotel.

As previous letters and articles appearing in the News-Leader have pointed out, the hotel would be built on wetlands located on Sadler Road. If you read the latest city staff report prepared by the Planning Department, this reversal of opinion seems to be largely based on the fact that a private company, hired by the developer, has told the city that the wetlands are "of no significant functional value."

At first I was worried all over again. Especially since the St. Johns Water Management District and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the state and federal agencies that actually designated these lots as wetlands, and repeatedly requested information on the properties and plans for a hotel from the developer, never received the information. But then I thought hey, the city Planning Department knows what it's doing, right?

Well, maybe not. The city canceled the PAB hearing yet again (fourth time), one day prior to the meeting. It seems the city Planning Department had neglected to arrange posting of the properties with notices of the meeting, as required.

There are many reasons why the Sadler Road hotel project is a bad idea, and the wetlands issue is one of the biggest. But it seems to me that other, equally important issues are at play here. We all (city staff included) need to look at the developers' dubious actions in pursuing this project, the adverse effects this proposal would have on the residential communities that adjoin or are in close proximity to these lots and the precedent that would be set in allowing a developer to get around in-place, protective C-1 zoning in order to maximize his profits.

In 1995 there was an attempt to put a hotel on this very same site. That proposal was met with a recommendation of disapproval by the PAB and unanimously rejected by the city commissioners. The following comments were put forward by the commission in their decision and are a matter of public record:

-- The proposed use will create a drainage problem.

-- The proposed use will adversely affect property values.

-- We find that it would not be advantageous to the community or the neighborhood.

-- It is a violation of the land development regulations and the comprehensive plan.

This is the same type of project on the exact same spot. Given those facts it is hard to fathom why the Planning Department would put forth an opinion to the PAB that this is a good idea. I can only hope that when the PAB and the city commissioners finally meet on this matter, they will do the right thing for the community, as did previous commissioners, and reject this proposal.

The city has rescheduled the matter of the Sadler Road Hotel (again) to go before the PAB on Wednesday at 6 p.m. It seems that some developers count on delay and inconvenience to wear down opposition to their proposals. Please try to attend Wednesday night and voice your opinions and concerns, if any, on this proposal.

By A.K. Johns/Fernandina Beach -- from Fernandina Beach News-Leader VIEWPOINT