When completed, the $15 million structure would have 500 spaces!
ST. ARMANDS KEY — Plans for a new city parking garage on St. Armands Circle are nearing the finish line this summer.
The roughly four-story, 500-space parking structure will replace the surface parking lot on the northeastern corner of the restaurant and shopping district on Adams and Madison drives.
The designs for the estimated $15 million project have been months in the making, including a series of lengthy public workshops, and received unanimous and enthusiastic approval from the city’s Planning Board this month.
The designs still need final approval from the City Commission before a guaranteed maximum price and formal construction contract can be finalized later this year. Work is expected to start in the spring and finish by the end of 2018.
The garage will include a valet area on the first floor, a parking management office and possibly several solar panels on the top floor, Lyons said. The design required a series of waivers for certain setbacks and rules to fit it into a Tetris-styled slot between the shops and fire station there, architect Jonathan Parks said.
“This is a tremendous project on a very difficult site,” Parks said. “It’s like trying to build a Faberge egg inside of a glass bottle.”
It will add a net increase of 304 parking spaces, considering the spaces in the current lot and the loss of a few on-street slots as part of the design, said Kimley-Horn’s Mark Santos, who worked on the designs. The project also will include a new right-turn lane off John Ringling Boulevard, burying some overhead utility lines and two “gateway signs” denoting St. Armands for drivers arriving from Longboat Key or downtown Sarasota, he said.
