Clearwater City Council To Proceed with a Development Agreement with The Bluffs

The Clearwater City Council has agreed to continue the process of entering into a development agreement with the development team of Gotham Property Acquisitions and The DeNunzio Group, known as The Bluffs, to redevelop the waterfront area.  The matter ultimately will be decided by the citizens of Clearwater.

Located on the waterfront, the area includes two parcels of land, the site of the former City Hall and the Harborview site.  The new development would link to the new amphitheater and the redeveloped Coachman Park, known as the Imagine Clearwater project.  The property is owned by the city, so a referendum question would be added to the November ballot. 

In June, the council selected The Bluffs team after receiving three proposals.  The Bluffs team also includes Coastal Construction, Behar + Peteranecz Architecture and Stantec, which is currently working with the city on Imagine Clearwater.

The Bluffs’ proposal calls for two 27-story residential towers on the City Hall site offering a collective total of 600 rental units.  On the Harborview site, The Bluffs proposes a 13-story, 150-room hotel with 15,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space. 

The Bluffs’ proposal includes the following elements:

A boutique conference center in the 13-story hotel that could hold 1,000 people, a 2,000-square-foot performance center and a rooftop restaurant and beer garden.

In their introductory letter, The Bluffs group cited several retail partners and restaurants, including John and Trudy Cooper, Volet Hospitality Group and Sea Dog Brewing Co. In a previous presentation, the group also mentioned Green Bench Brewing as a tenant.

Green open space retail corridors that will filter through the developments creating connectivity between the park and Osceola Avenue, which the group sees as an important threshold to the park.

Pedestrian bridges will be built on the Harborview site, where the residential towers would be built, and the City Hall site will include outdoor dining accessible to the public and access to the park.

The following is the language of the referendum that will appear on the ballot in November:

Shall the Clearwater City Charter be amended to allow the City, instead of selling the vacant City Hall and a portion of the former Harborview sites to the highest bidder at a public auction, to sell the properties to Gotham Property Acquisitions and The DeNunzio Group; who will create approximately 600 apartments and 158-key hotel, retail, entertainment, restaurants and cultural uses available to all Clearwater residents, as further described and limited by City Ordinance 9597-22?

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