Commissioners voted 7-0 on Sept. 14 to let the developer of the north end’s tallest building carve an eight-slip boat basin out of the old Mote Foundation property at 5630 Gulf of Mexico Drive. Veterans of Town Hall called the application a first in nearly half a century of practice, and when the public was invited to speak, not one person rose.
—Bruce Franklin has been planning land on Longboat Key since the Players Club broke ground at the end of 1979. Allen Parsons’ planning department includes a staff member with 40 years inside Town Hall. Between them, neither man could recall ever seeing what came before the Town Commission on Sept. 14: a privately initiated application to dredge.
“Since I’ve been here, I’ve never seen a privately initiated dredge application before,” Franklin, the land planner representing the property owner, told commissioners. “This was actually a first for me.”
—Forty minutes later, Dredging Order 2026-01 passed unanimously, clearing the way for an eight-slip boat basin to be excavated at the eastern end of the vacant lot at 5630 Gulf of Mexico Drive, between Tarawitt Drive and Jungle Queen Way, where a three-story, eight-unit condominium approved in 2023 is finally about to rise. The developer pulled the building permit for the condominium itself just last month.
—With that vote, the last unresolved question on one of the island’s most fought-over parcels, land that went through a failed referendum, a successful one, two rapid-fire sales and a full entitlement gauntlet, was answered. The final piece of the north end puzzle is now in place.
—A First in Nearly Half a Century
—The hearing itself was a procedural unicorn. Under Chapter 152 of the town code, staff can administratively approve dredging of up to 500 cubic yards. Anything more must go to the commission as a quasi-judicial proceeding, complete with sworn testimony, ex parte disclosures and findings of fact. This project calls for an estimated 1,335 cubic yards, nearly triple the administrative threshold, and that number alone is what put the item on the dais.
—Town Attorney Maggie Mooney walked commissioners through the unfamiliar terrain, noting the town has had few, if any, such applications. Parsons, the town’s planning director, put a finer point on it.
“I have a staff member who has 40 years of experience in the town, and there has never been another dredge application that this staff member is aware of,” Parsons said. “It is not something that comes up particularly often.”
—Two commissioners made disclosures before testimony began. Commissioner BJ Bishop said she had visited the site to see where the dredging would occur but had spoken with no representatives. Commissioner Gary Coffin disclosed that he sat on the Planning and Zoning Board when the original site plan was reviewed and voted on it there. Both affirmed they could weigh the evidence impartially, and no conflicts of interest were declared.
—What the Order Allows
—The dredge order authorizes excavation of the eastern portion of the lot to create a private boat basin at the dead end of the badly silted canal that runs between Tarawitt and Jungle Queen. The basin will hold docks and boat lifts for eight slips, one for each condominium unit, restricted to residents and their guests. No commercial use is permitted, and there is no boat ramp, a point Bishop confirmed directly with staff.
—Most of the 1,335 cubic yards, notably, is not canal bottom at all. The bulk of the excavation is upland, digging the basin itself out of what is today dry, vacant residential land. The dredging of the existing canal is comparatively modest. A new seawall will ring the basin, and Franklin said new seawall is planned around essentially the entire project.
—Staff photographs presented at the hearing showed just how choked the canal has become, silted and overgrown at its western end. The application’s boat basin flushing analysis, staff said, indicates the work will actually improve water flow and flushing in the canal, a side benefit for every canal-front neighbor on those two streets.
—A species survey found no mangroves on the site and no listed species of concern, and the developer will post manatee-awareness signage. The basin will sit at least 12 feet from the adjoining property to the east. Parsons said staff found all six findings of fact required under Chapter 152 satisfied and recommended approval without reservation.
—Excavated material will be stockpiled temporarily on the western portion of the site behind silt fencing before being hauled to a disposal facility. Project architect Mark Sultana told commissioners the upland fill will be reused in construction of the condominium, while “anything in the canal will be excavated and removed as quickly as the contractor possibly can.”
—Two Land Flips, a Referendum and Two Decades of Waiting
—The vote closes a saga that has run longer than some Longboat mortgages. The property once belonged personally to Bill Mote, and upon his death it passed into his personal foundation. The foundation tried and failed to sell the land under its old commercial zoning, and in 2016 it even offered the parcel to the town as open space.
—In 2017, voters rejected residential density for the site in the same election that sank Unicorp National Development’s density request for the old Colony Beach & Tennis Resort. In March 2019, the Mote question came back alone, and voters said yes. A comprehensive plan amendment and rezoning to residential followed in 2019 and 2020.
—Then came the flips. The foundation sold the land to Longboat Key’s Michael S. Kimball in April 2021 for $1.5 million. Kimball sold it that June for $3 million, doubling the price in roughly two months. The buyer, now operating as WB Longboat Residences LLC, won site plan approval in January 2023 for the eight-unit building that will stand as the tallest structure on the north end of the island.
—The boat basin was drawn on that 2023 site plan but deliberately left out of the approval. Franklin explained why: the engineering, flushing studies and environmental surveys cost real money, and the owner was unwilling to spend it before the rezoning and site plan were secure. “This has actually been the end of a very long road,” he said.
—There is one more wrinkle of island history buried in the file. During the 2024 hurricanes, the vacant lot served as a debris storage site for the recovery effort, a civic cameo for a property that has spent a decade at the center of civic argument.
—Questions From the Dais
—If there was scrutiny to be had, it came from the commissioners, and it was largely practical rather than adversarial.
—One commissioner asked what the seawall will be made of, and whether it could be a living seawall designed to host oysters, clams and shellfish habitat. Parsons conceded the application “hasn’t gotten that far yet,” saying most seawalls installed today are vinyl, and deferred the question to the applicant. Notably, the applicant’s team never circled back to answer it before the vote. The seawall material remains an open question that will be settled at the permit stage.
—Commissioner Sarah Karon, participating remotely, raised the question most likely to matter to anyone dining outdoors nearby: how long will more than 1,300 cubic yards of wet spoil sit on the site? “Might it be a stinky mess for a while?” she asked, noting the open-air restaurants close at hand, with Harry’s Continental Kitchens just to the south. Sultana’s answer, that canal material will be removed as fast as the contractor can manage, came without a firm deadline.
—Commissioner Steve Branham pressed on parking, asking where boat contractors and lift-maintenance crews will put their trucks on streets that are, in his words, “pretty tight already.” Sultana pointed to 14 guest spaces on the site plan in addition to under-building garage parking, saying that “should easily cover any maintenance people coming and going.”
Mayor Williams asked whether converting dry land to water changes the project’s impervious coverage math. Parsons said if anything it reduces the buildable calculation, since there will be less land area after the dredge, and it does not alter the approved site plan.
—Another commissioner praised the submission itself, calling it “one of the most detailed permit applications I’ve ever seen,” noting it included depth contours for the canal dating back to 1968, and crediting plans review officer Tate Taylor’s work on the file.
—The Town Wants the Dirt
—The most interesting exchange of the afternoon may prove to be Bishop’s. The town, she noted, has been hunting for material to fill the subaqueous hole offshore in the Gulf, and here were 1,335 cubic yards about to come out of the ground.
—Public Works Director Charlie Mopps said the material would have to be tested for quality, just as the town has done with grab samples elsewhere, but he did not dismiss the idea. “Thirteen hundred cubic yards isn’t something to sniff at,” Mopps said, adding it could potentially serve either the subaqueous project or the town’s upcoming canal mitigation site for seagrass.
—Franklin, for his part, said the owner would be happy to let the town examine the material. In an era when Longboat Key has just committed roughly $9 million to dredge its 88 public canals for the first time since 2003, the prospect of a private developer handing the town free, pre-excavated fill is the kind of small-bore win that tends to get remembered.
—The Silence at the Podium
—Then came the moment that said the most by saying nothing. When Mayor Williams opened the floor to public comment, no one stood. Public comment opened and closed in a single breath.
—That silence is worth measuring against January 2023, when residents of Tarawitt Drive and Jungle Queen Way came to Town Hall worried about construction noise, creeping commercialization and cars stacking up on their narrow streets. Three and a half years later, with the excavators finally at the door, the neighborhood registered no objection at all, not to the basin, not to the spoil pile, not to the boats.
—Whether that reflects satisfaction with a plan that keeps the basin private, resident-only and rampless, or simple fatigue after a decade of hearings on this parcel, the record from Sept. 14 shows a project that arrived controversial and departed without an opponent in the room.
—What Happens Next
—The commission’s approval is the town’s green light, but not the last permit in the stack. The Army Corps of Engineers has already signed off. A Florida Department of Environmental Protection permit is still pending. After that come a town building permit for the basin work and separate permits for the seawall, the docks and any boat lifts.
—Franklin said basin construction will be timed in coordination with the condominium build, which, with its building permit issued in August, should get underway shortly. Longboat’s north end skyline and its waterline are both about to change together.
—What It Means for Longboat
—For the town, the significance runs past one boat basin. Dredging Order 2026-01 is now the template: the first test of Chapter 152’s commission-review trigger in institutional memory, arriving at the very moment Longboat Key enters its own dredging era, with the first canal assessments landing on November tax bills. Any future waterfront owner or developer contemplating a private dredge now has a road map, and the town has a precedent showing how the process runs when an application checks every box.
—For the north end, it is the closing chapter of the Mote land story, from a foundation that could not sell the property, to voters who said no and then yes, to a parcel that doubled in value between April and June, to the tallest building north of mid-key with its own private harbor at the end of a once-forgotten canal.
—Franklin ended his presentation on that note of history. The property, he reminded commissioners, belonged to Bill Mote himself before passing to his foundation, the same foundation Franklin represented through the referendum. “I think you all know of Bill’s legacy in the community,” he said, “and I think he would be excited to see a boat basin built on property he used to own.”
—The roll was called. Karon, yes. Bishop, yes. Coffin, yes. Gladding, yes. Branham, yes. Vice Mayor Gold, yes. Mayor Williams, yes. Seven to nothing, and the last piece of the puzzle slid into place.
