Marco restaurant owners say Esplanade given more lenient parking ratio

Parking was the deal-breaker Friday, when Marco Island Planning Board members continued Esplanade developer Jack Antaramian's numerous requests until Nov. 14.

While replacement of an amphitheater with a gazebo bar was the high-profile issue when Antaramian went before City Council last month -- and council members sent the debate back to the planning body -- the subject on Friday morning was parking parity.

Marco restaurateurs, including Joey's owner Joseph Olivierio and Arturo's owners, Arturo and Judy Perez, complained that Antaramian would get a much more lenient ratio of parking to restaurant square footage than they have for theirs.

That is just not fair, they told Planning Board members.

In September 1998, Antaramian and city officials signed an agreement for the Esplanade that swapped development rights between two of his under-construction projects: the Esplanade, and Pier 81, about two miles down the road on Bald Eagle Drive. The upscale Esplanade mixed-use project sits on Smokehouse Bay directly across the road on North Collier Boulevard from the Winn-Dixie.

In February 2001, City Council amended that 1998 agreement, for concessions only at the Esplanade, not the Pier 81 project.

Community Development Director Greg Niles told Planning Board members that under the current agreement, 353 open and covered parking spaces will be provided at the Esplanade, and, of those, 142 must be reserved for use by owners of the residential condos.

The project includes one residential condominium, two mixed-use buildings, one commercial-only building, a three-level parking garage and a 77-slip marina.

"Within the mixed use structures, individual commercial tenant improvements are underway or completed," Niles wrote in a Nov. 4 memo. "Flanking the central plaza area of two restaurants with 190 and 221 permanent seats ... Starbucks and an ice cream shop will have a total of 28 permanent seats. With the addition of the desired outdoor cafe as proposed (and 88 permanent) seats the number of known or anticipated seats is 527."

City Planner Bryan Milk on Friday said there are some deviations in the development agreement which depart from the Marco land development code criteria for shopping centers.

More to the point, "20 percent of the floor area can be used for restaurants and seating. ... Any additional square footage (and you've) got to provide more parking," Milk said. However, the way the development agreement was cut at the Esplanade, the ratio came in closer to 40 percent, because it allowed them to discount the outdoor seating.

"The folk in the (Marco Island) Restaurant Association felt that they, as individual businesses and groups, had a far stricter parking requirement than the Esplanade, and felt that wasn't fair," Milk said. "They want to be treated the same."

Those arguments touched Planning Board members Rich Nelson and Everett Van Hoesen.

When it became clear that the board was going to shoot down Antaramian's request, board members suggested to Antaramian attorney Clay Booker that it might be prudent to continue the discussion after Antaramian had a chance to digest city complaints.

Milk wouldn't say whether Antaramian was asking for too much this time, only saying that "I believe the development agreement provides far greater flexibility than (that enjoyed by) existing restaurants on the island."

It was a good discussion, Niles said Friday.

"There was a lot of good public comment, and a lot of thoughtful dialogue on all sides. (People asked) some good questions," Niles said.

The pricey Esplanade is nearly completed, but Antaramian has continually slammed into resistance with changes he's tried to make in the past few months. Antaramian offered residents an amphitheater in 2001 when council members were about to approve his development agreement. In September, Antaramian asked council members to approve a gazebo bar instead.

City employees, Smokehouse Bay neighbors, owners of new apartments in the Esplanade, and some council members protested the last-minute change. Then, city employees discovered Antaramian did not meet required setbacks for either a gazebo bar or an amphitheater.

Antaramian on Oct. 6 said he would consider the following development agreement amendment: closing the bar at 10 p.m., no amplified music, and only using the gazebo bar as an "accessory to a restaurant," meaning the gazebo would not be used as a free-standing bar that can serve alcoholic beverages whether or not food is served.

Antaramian also agreed to address seawall setback deviations before Marco's Planning Board.