Application For Edgewater High-Rise Condos Continued To June 18

CLEARWATER, FL – An application for the Clearwater Community Development Board to consider permitting a seven-story condominium development has been continued to June 18.

The application was originally scheduled to be heard by the CDB on Tuesday.

Members of the Edgewater Homeowners Association received word of the postponement Monday.

For the past month, they’ve been walking the neighborhood, passing out fliers, making phone calls and collecting signatures on a petition to protest the proposal.

Although application won't be heard at Tuesday's meeting, Sunnydale Drive resident Jenni Nevin said she and her neighbors are still planning to rally outside the CDB meeting at the Clearwater Main Library at 100 N. Osceola Drive on Tuesday at 1 p.m., the time the application was originally scheduled to be considered.

The 200 members of the neighborhood association had T-shirts, buttons and banners made with the message “No Tall Condos,” the same message they’ve put on yard signs placed throughout their neighborhood.

The request for the condominium development was submitted by Valor Capital LLC. The company is proposing to build a 92-foot-tall condominium complex with a parking garage on a vacant lot across from the Comfort Suites at 1941 Edgewater Drive and Edgewater Drive Park in Clearwater.

Nevin said a high-rise building in a neighborhood of mostly single-family homes simply doesn’t make sense.

The site is zoned for tourist development, intended to accommodate the type of small mom-and-pop motels that occupied that area for decades, she said. Although condominiums are an allowable use, Valor Capital's request is for a taller Level 2 designation.

“Currently the allowed height is similar to the (three-story) Comfort Suites,” said Nevin. Comfort Suites has a Level 1 designation.

“There is not one building on Edgewater Drive that is a high-rise. This building will be totally out of character and does not fit in with the landscape of Edgewater Drive or our neighborhood of single-family ranch-style homes.”

She said she and her neighbors feel that allowing a high-rise would violate the intent of the area's zoning designation.

“We’re hoping if the CBD sees we oppose this, they will rightfully have to abide by their own set of zoning regulations, she said.

Anticipating a vote in its favor, Valor Capital has already posted a “Coming Soon” sign announcing its plan to build high-rise luxury condominiums on the property.