Some Projects Move Forward on Longboat Key

This is just a "progress posting" of the new Publix/CVS complex, going in at the Longboat Key "Town Center" on Bay Isles Parkway.  This is a project I am proud to have been associated with in the guise of a Planning & Zoning Commissioner.   I was privileged to be re-appointed the the Board on May 7th, and will now have an opportunity to continue until May of 2015.  I expect this project to be completed by then.  Don't ask me about the Colony, or LBK Club or Whitney Beach projects - life moves at the speed of a sea turtle around here.

May 13th

April 21st

The pictures were taken from different angles, due to where I could capture an image on both days, but the April shots show the Publix store demolition in progress, and the corresponding shot reveals the current CVS drugstore, all that's left now.

The plan calls for the new CVS store to be built on the site once occupied by a Shell station, one of three gas stations on the island in 2004 when I moved here, now only one remains.  The new CVS store is free standing and will be larger, as will the eventual new Publix market.  Overall, however, there will be less small retail space in the project.  The pictures show that in three short weeks, the new CVS has gone from the vertical posts framing the front door, to a building awaiting only a roof.   The newspapers have been told that the new CVS will open in October, at which point the old building (upper left photo) will be torn down.  I believe they'll open even sooner (you heard it here first) in July.
                                                                                                             

April 21, 2012

Right now, the Publix work focuses on building up the "pad" on which the foundation will be laid.  FEMA rules were not in effect
back when the original project was done.  The new buildings and parking lot will be four feet higher in elevation than those they replace.   The new Publix will also be changing its orientation, and will not longer have the parking lot between it and Gulf of Mexico Drive (SR 789), but instead will face Bay Isles with the new CVS to it's right front.  And, plans call for an eventual third 'office building' in the location currently occupied by the 'old' CVS.
                                               

So, we've come some distance since the day after Easter Sunday, when the project began in earnest.  This being Longboat Key, there are people complaining, of course.  But, the height of the buildings are well within code, the trees in the old parking lot will be replaced and in the end, people will be proud of a larger store (both Publix and CVS) without adjacent empty storefronts  as was sadly the case for the past five years.  There are signs of progress, and some of us will actually live to see this done by January 1, 2013, if all goes to plan.  I'll try and update this project in the coming months.

May 13, 2012