Demolition underway at Sandcastle Resort on Lido Key in Sarasota

Luxury hotel developer Opal has plans for the site but has not revealed what it will do.

By S.T. Cardinal
| 5:00 a.m. August 15, 2025
| 1 Free Article Remaining!

Sandcastle Resort at Lido Beach was a 176-unit hotel on Benjamin Franklin Drive. On Wednesday, Aug. 13, demolition continued on the building which suffered extensive damage from 2024 hurricanes.

Manatee-Sarasota

The Sandcastle Resort on Lido Key in Sarasota is now a heap of twisted metal and scattered cinderblocks.

Demolition has begun on the formerly 176-room hotel at 1540 Benjamin Franklin Drive, about a mile from St. Armands Circle. The building suffered extensive flood damage from hurricanes Helene and Milton.

The sign remains, for now, as the Sandcastle Resort at Lido Beach is demolished on Lido Key Wednesday, Aug. 13. A new hotel will be built on the site by Opal, though details are yet to be shared by developers.

Ocean Properties Hotels Resorts & Affiliates acquired the property in February 2014 for $27.4 million from Lido Sand LLC, according to Sarasota County property records. Lido Sand sold the property to another LLC with the same Delray Beach address, records show, for $24.55 million in October 2022.

The Opal Collection, a unit of Ocean Properties that operates about two dozen luxury hotels in Florida, including the nearby Cirque St. Armands, Zota Beach Resort and The Resort at Longboat Key Club, is planning a project on the six-acre beachfront site where the Sandcastle is being knocked down, according to the Sarasota Observer, sister paper of the Business Observer.

To knock down this sandcastle, heavy machinery was necessary. The Sandcastle Resort at Lido Key is being demolished Wednesday, Aug. 13, and the ownership group behind St. Regis, Cirque and other Florida hotels and resorts have plans to build anew at the location sandwiched by the Gulf and Benjamin Franklin Drive.

Details are yet to be revealed about what Opal has planned, but the company’s website says to expect “a relaxed yet refined coastal retreat” with “all the classic hallmarks of an Opal: signature hospitality, luxury accommodations, an enhanced guest experience and the best in food and beverage.”

Plans have not been submitted to the city of Sarasota for review, and the company has not responded to a request from the Sarasota Observer for more information as of mid-August.

Ocean Properties and Opal previously submitted plans to the City of Sarasota, in July 2017, for a $100 million project that also included demolishing the Sandcastle, built in 1953. Those plans included a pair of sleek towers rising nine and 10 stories, with a total of 128 new rooms -- each having an unobstructed view of the gulf, with roughly 20,000 square feet of meeting, event and restaurant space, according to the plans.

This article originally appeared on sister site YourObserver.com.

author

S.T. Cardinal

S.T. "Tommy" Cardinal is the Longboat Key news reporter. The Sarasota native earned a degree from the University of Central Florida in Orlando with a minor in environmental studies. In Central Florida, Cardinal worked for a monthly newspaper covering downtown Orlando and College Park. He then worked for a weekly newspaper in coastal South Carolina where he earned South Carolina Press Association awards for his local government news coverage and photography.