Sarasota County court records storage facility advances

With files stacked to the ceiling in a non-weather hardened steel building and lined along walls in its downtown offices, the Sarasota County Clerk of Circuit Court’s Office is in need of a new, secure and storm-hardened location to store legal records.

The Swift Family Limited Partnership has a site within a half-mile of the office with two buildings bisected effectively by an alley that ends at the Seminole Gulf Railroad, across the track from the under-development Sarasota Station affordable housing community.

To build a new storage facility there at the curve where Aspinwall Street meets Mango Avenue, though, Jon F. Swift Construction must first receive City Commission approval to vacate the right-of-way of the alley and rezone a portion of the site to from Industrial Light Warehouse to Downtown Edge. 

The properties’ street addresses are at 2250 Aspinwall St., where custom carpentry company operates, and 401 Mango Ave., currently home to an auto body and paint business.

By 4-0 votes with member Dan Clermont absent, the Sarasota Planning Board at its June 10 meeting recommended approval of both measures. If approved by the commission, Swift would build and initially lease an approximately 27,000-square-foot facility of mostly storage with minimal office. To make the plan work, though, the building would have to be constructed atop the alley and the two buildings currently occupying the parcels demolished.

Courtesy image

At its Nov. 18 meeting, the Sarasota County Commission unanimously approved a build-to-suit, lease-to-own proposal that would have the county eventually purchase the property and its combined 1.16 acres. The lease term is 30 years with an option to purchase after the first 12 months of occupation. 

The initial annual rent is $1.05 million, with annual escalator of 3% or the Consumer Price Index, whichever is greater. The county may purchase the building at $15.4 million after one year, the price escalating by 3% per year or based on the CPI, whichever is greater. Including furniture, fixtures and equipment, the total cost fits within a Surtax IV allocation of $18 million.

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To sweeten the deal, Swift proffered to include a 20-foot-wide access to the railroad right of way assuming it is ever redeveloped as Legacy Trail north of its current terminus at Fruitville Road. 

“The proffer is great, but my only real question is, in whose lifetime are we ever going to be able to take advantage of it,” said board member Alexander Neihaus. “Railroads are notorious for keeping their rights of way, even after they decommission them. They are very, very tough landowners. Were we proffered something just to make it look good, because it's not something we could potentially ever use.”

Once the alley vacation approved, the succeeding hearing covered the rezoning without a site plan request, about which Neihaus had another question. The board was in general agreement that the redevelopment of the property would be an improvement and likely reduce traffic in the area. The storage facility, after all, will have few employees and they won’t be there all the time.

But is it an office with storage? Or is it a warehouse with an office? The latter doesn’t appear in the code as permitted use in the Downtown Edge zone district. 

“I think of it more as office, and then associated storage,” said Chief Planner Brianna Dobbs. 

“It's just that the use isn't clearly articulated in DTE,” Neihaus said. “It is what it is, but it's not really just an office. People are not going to be doing work there. they’re going to go file things and leave.”

Although calling the project a net benefit, “My concern is making stuff up to fit the thing that we like,” Neihaus said.

Dobbs committed to “more clearly articulating that” distinction before taking the matter to the City Commission.