Cabana Club RedevelopmentWe are homesteaded residents of the Isle of Sand Key, directly east from the Cabana Club which Legg Mason is proposing to redevelop. One of our main concerns with Legg Mason’s plans to build a hotel and restaurant at this site and on the existing parking lot is the lack of adequate parking that currently exists. Parking is already a problem with just the restaurant. We have personally witnessed the cars being double parked and exit lanes being blocked in the parking lot where the valet has to move one car to get another one out, and also know of cars being parked illegally at the local tennis courts on the island as well as in our parking lot at the Isle of Sand Key. Legg Mason just snubs its nose at this problem and seems to have no issue with repeatedly paying tickets for the illegal parking. If this is the kind of neighbor Legg Mason is today, then how can they look at us with a straight face and tell us they are only going to provide eight more parking spaces than what currently exists? They try to tell us that they are providing more parking than is needed by a 38 room hotel, but this ignores the fact that their plans include a 165 seat restaurant that will be open to the public, and that guests from the 425 room restored Belleview Biltmore Hotel will want to drive here for the beach or for dinner. To make matters worse, where will the employees and managers of this hotel/restaurant park their vehicles? Do they think we believe all these people will be ferried over in some “water taxi” or shuttled over in a bus? If they can sell the City Planning Department on that one, the city should hire them to solve the parking problem on Clearwater Beach! Better yet, the Mayor may want their advice on mass transit solutions for the entire city! - Michael and Ardith Shipley
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