Hotel developers to hear from Siesta Key residents

SIESTA KEY, Fla. (WWSB) - Hotel developers are wanting to listen to concerns from Siesta Key residents as they look to break ground on a new project.

SKH1 is the temporary name of the property developer that’s looking to build an eight-story hotel between Beach Road and Calle Miramar on Siesta Key. The Siesta Key Coalition reached out to ABC7 this morning, about three new hotels that are in discussions to build in the area.

One of the developments includes an 170 room property with a five story parking garage that would be right outside residents windows, blocking their view of the sunset. Residents are concerned about the transient nature of guests coming in and out of large hotels, traffic increasing, environmental concerns and privacy concerns.

“All the residential homes and condos in this area have balconies and pool areas that these hotels are going to be looming over. It’s a loss of property value. If this gets approved it opens the floodgate for a lot of this type of high density hotels, and one day we’re going to wake up and look like Clearwater beach,” said Mark Spiegel, resident and Siesta Key Coalition Chair.

Spiegel says residents are also concerned about developers breaking zoning restrictions that were put in place in the 90′s, to protect the beach town from over-development.

“They’re also trying to go and exceed the height limit. Right now the height limit is restricted to 35 feet above the flood elevation, and they want to go 80 feet above that, which would make them 95 feet in height. That’s more than double our residential communities that join them on the eastern side,” Spiegel says.

Monday night residents will get to share their concerns with developers in a zoom workshop online.