Four years after buying a 15-acre waterfront site in downtown Sarasota for $27 million, Jacksonville-based GreenPointe Communities LLC’s infrastructure work is underway on the project.
The $1 billion mixed-use Quay Sarasota Waterfront District will comprise about 700 residences, 175 hotel rooms and more than 200,000 square feet of office and retail space.
“It’s been a little more than three years in the making to get us to this day,” said GreenPointe Communities President Grady Miars at a May 23 groundbreaking. “This site provides an excellent opportunity to do what we think we do well, which is create a sense of place.”
Miars said GreenPointe is concerned that the economy might turn down before the project is complete, but that the Quay’s “grid system” should buffer against recession.
“The block plan that we’ve developed for the property allows us to do infrastructure work and bring projects on incrementally, if necessary,” he said. “So if the economy were to slow down at some point, we also could slow down our pace of development there.”
Miars said the project — GreenPointe’s first urban, mixed-use development following a series of single-family communities around the state — likely won’t reach build-out until 2023 or as late as 2025.
The groundbreaking initiates the start of water, sewer and utility construction including a storm treatment vault and basic road structure that will serve the Quay Sarasota Waterfront District and the Sarasota Downtown Bayfront District.
“Since acquiring the property, we have been working with Sarasota city leaders to design and create a sense of place that will make a lasting contribution to the Sarasota community,” Miars said in a news release.
GreenPointe Communities is collaborating with students from Sarasota’s Booker High School STEM program on the project.
The goal is to provide students real-world experience in the planning, design and construction of the development.
GreenPointe Communities in Northeast Florida include TrailMark and EvenTide in St. Johns County and Amelia Walk in Fernandina Beach.
In August, GreenPointe purchased 188 acres in northwest Clay County to build a 500-home master-planned community called GreyHawk.