Dec. 03–PALMETTO — For more than 30 years, Manatee County and city of Palmetto officials have talked about attracting a hotel near the Bradenton Area Convention Center.
That much-anticipated achievement is on the verge of finally happening, with plans for two hotels on property adjoining the center about to be authorized.
On Monday night, the Palmetto City Commission will conduct the first reading of an ordinance regarding a development plan for a Sheraton hotel and a Cambria hotel on 12.5 undeveloped acres just north of the convention center on U.S. 41-301.
The second reading and public hearing is tentatively scheduled for Dec. 17.
"We're excited about the possibility," Mark Barnebey, attorney for the city, said. "The plans are coming together. We're moving fairly quickly."
In late August BACC Hotel LLC and In Development Partners of San Francisco acquired the property from Pinzon LLC of Sao Paulo, Brazil, for $5.3 million.
The $60 million development plan calls for an eight-story, 251-room Sheraton hotel with a rooftop lounge and restaurant, dining patio and swimming pool on the southeast corner of the property. A rendering shows a covered walkway connecting the Sheraton with the convention center just steps to the south.
A separate four-story, 7,500-square-foot building with a restaurant and retail space is to be built just off U.S. 41-301.
On the north side of an existing extension of Seventh Street East, the developers are to construct a four-story, 124-room Cambria hotel.
Seventh Street may eventually be extended east to Haben Boulevard to create additional access to the property.
In a previous announcement, Palmetto Mayor Shirley Groover Bryant said the project will have "a tremendous impact on Palmetto as well as surrounding areas. There has long been a shortage of hotels here. As presented, it will become another local venue for social gatherings."
The lodgings are expected to generate more revenue for the county-owned convention center as well as the city's and county's property tax base.
In 2017, INDP principal Anthony DeRusso pitched a proposal for a $59.3 million hotel on the convention center's parking lot off Haben Boulevard. The adjoining Pinzon acreage was to be acquired to create a new parking area. Yet the parties could not come to terms regarding a price for the Pinzon site and the deal fell through.
The Fort Myers-based Fischler Property Co. negotiated a new arrangement that calls for two hotels on the former Pinzon property.
The city's approval of the project expires in three years if a final site plan has not been submitted, though the applicants can request two one-year extensions.