Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Airport to get cut of food, drink sales from Innovation Green (5/23/06)
This article originally appeared in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune (May 23, 2006).
Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport will get a cut of restaurant and bar sales if a hotel is built on its property, but that hotel remains one of the greatest unknowns about Innovation Green.
The Sarasota-Manatee Airport Authority approved a new, 99-year lease for nearly 8 acres of airport land to SRQ Innovation Green on Monday.
SRQ Innovation Green, controlled by Finergy Development, intends to build offices and a hotel on that land, but so far only the offices and a café are in the plans.
“It’s going to be driven by the traffic requirements,” said Craig Colburn, attorney for Finergy.
“The city will have a great deal to say about that,” Colburn predicted.
Innovation Green already has been whittled down. Frank Folsom Smith, the architect who first acquired the lease, had hoped for 200,000 square feet of offices in an “urban village.”
Smith won approval last year for 126,000 square feet of offices and a 4,000-square-foot café. He didn’t seek approval for a hotel at the time because he was looking for a partner.
The land is at the airport’s entrance on University Parkway.
