TownePlace Suites proposed for Scenic Gulf Drive in Walton County, Florida

MIRAMAR Beach front — An Atlanta-dependent resort expenditure and administration enterprise with a satellite office in Destin is proposing a 100-unit TownePlace Suites hotel for a 1.5-acre internet site on Scenic Gulf Travel close to U.S. Freeway 98.

TownePlace Suites is a Marriott Worldwide-branded extended-continue to be lodge with 433 spots, regionally including a single location in Fort Walton Seashore and one more in Niceville.

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The proposal for the prepared TownePlace Suites lodge at 39 Scenic Gulf Generate arrived in entrance of the Walton County Technical Evaluation Committee final 7 days, and will be back again in entrance of the exact same committee on March 17.

The March 17 committee assembly is essential in relationship with a quantity of thoughts elevated by the county’s arranging team and other county government departments with regard to plans for the house.

Among the the questions elevated in a staff critique of the proposal from Banyan Financial investment Group — which operates 26 motels in 13 states, such as Hilton Garden Inn, Hampton Inn and Courtyard by Marriott homes, among the other folks — were being concerns about a absence of floodplain facts, alongside with issues about landscaping buffers and the inadequacy of plans at first submitted for the undertaking.

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The TownePlace Suites proposal also ran into issues relevant to two significant neighborhood issues. Just one of those issues is a mobility program at the moment under development by the county with the goal of getting persons out of automobiles and into other transportation possibilities. The 2nd concern is tied to ongoing authorized wrangling more than “customary use,” the issue of who can use privately owned beaches, which at the moment represent the vast bulk of the county’s 26 miles of beach locations.

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Noting that the existing TownePlace Suites system did not have area set apart for bicycle parking, Walton County Scheduling Director Mac Carpenter strongly recommended the developer to contain at minimum some bicycle racks in the approach.

“I’d put in some bike racks,” Carpenter told reps of Banyan Investment Team and Baskerville-Donovan Inc., engineering agency for the project.

“No matter whether they’re demanded by code or not, your industry is going to be riding bikes,” Carpenter ongoing.

“We’re building some huge improvements throughout the south county,” Carpenter additional, outlining that the mobility system, now less than evaluation “is directed towards going individuals and not autos.”

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As currently penned, portion of the prepare is aimed particularly at lessening vehicular website traffic on Scenic Gulf Drive, in element by encouraging pedestrian and bicycle traffic, and also by the proposed design of a parking garage in the Silver Sands Top quality Outlets purchasing heart, straight across U.S. Highway 98 from the planned hotel. As currently envisioned, visitors would park and acquire trolleys or bicycles or wander to places alongside Scenic Gulf Drive all the way to the Miramar Regional Seashore Access.

Also at issue with the TownePlace Suites proposal have been inquiries of no matter whether the hotel will have allowable access to the beach front by using a personal walkway across adjacent home which prospects to a direct beach access. It was not distinct at the Specialized Assessment Committee conference whether or not that private entry led to the nearby general public Norwood Beach Obtain, or to a private beach front obtain issue.

“If y’all are heading to have beach entry, that demands to be element of this software,” Carpenter instructed the developer and the engineers. “We’ve been in a battle for the final several decades … (involving) a large controversy about general public and personal beaches, and who has obtain to what.”

At a minimum, Carpenter mentioned, Banyan Financial commitment Team will have to present that is has legal access to the seashore.

“Whatever settlement you are proposing to have with this operator, we have to have to know that they are licensed to grant this arrangement simply because this will be a code enforcement concern if we really do not solve it now and get a thing exclusively authorized,” Carpenter stated.

As development continues and seashore accessibility results in being a broader challenge, Carpenter reported “we may possibly have hundreds of these (accessibility troubles like the TownePlace Suites circumstance) in our county.”

If Banyan Expenditure Group and Baskerville-Donovan can get the excellent difficulties solved for the March 17 Technological Evaluate Committee conference, their proposal will head to the county’s Design and style Overview Board for its April 1 conference.

From there, the proposal will go to the county setting up commission, and then to the county fee for a closing final decision on the issuance of a improvement order for the challenge.

The TownePlace Suites proposal comes considerably less than a thirty day period soon after Walton County commissioners, who make the final decision on development programs, nixed a prepare for a 105-unit WoodSprings Suites proposed for 2.33 acres off U.S. Freeway 98 at Sandy Cay Drive, significantly less than 4 miles west of the proposed TownePlace Suites hotel area.