New hotel will complete three-facility campus at SRQ airport

A replacement of the current Kompose Hotel at Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport has been cleared for construction with May 14 site plan approval by the Sarasota Planning Board.

It will be the third of a three-hotel campus at the entrance to the airport, bordered by University Parkway, Rental Car Road and Rick Piccolo Circle. It will join the current Kompose Hotel and a Hampton Inn fronting University Parkway and complete the developer’s vested 300 rooms for which it holds a ground lease with the airport on the three parcels.

The applicant is Kompose Sarasota LLC doing business on the project as Sarasota Manatee Airport Authority SRQ 3 LLC, managed by Hugo Gagliardi, according to state records. What will become of the current Kompose Hotel has not been disclosed, but a brand name change is likely.

“We were vested for 300 hotel rooms within those three properties,” said Eric Chancellor of architect Chancellor Design Group. “This will bring us to that 300. This is 60 extended stay-style rooms.”

Photo by Andrew Warfield

More than the rooms, Chancellor said the building will also serve as the corporate headquarters of the hotel group currently based in downtown Sarasota. In addition to the hotel rooms, the total amount of non-residential development on the properties is not to exceed 171,250 square feet of office space and one 150-seat restaurant.

According to site plan, the building and parking lot will take only a portion of the parcel with plans for a large amenity area on the remainder of the property.

“For the large empty space there will be a lazy river, a pool, sports courts, things like that,” Chancellor said. “We're working with our landscape designers now for that and with the pool designers. The pool will be under a separate permit."

Courtesy image

As for the building, Chancellor told the Planning Board he expects the building permit and site plan “to be approved within the week.”

Planning Board members did express concern about vehicle access to the new hotel not available from Rick Piccolo Circle (the airport parking lot loop) or Rental Car Road. Streets internal to the airport, though, are privately owned and neither the airport nor Sarasota County, they were told, are entertaining roadway improvements at this time within the airport nor along University Parkway. And neither, staff reminded the board, are subject to city authority. 

A version of this article originally appeared on sister site YourObserver.com.