SOTA will be 16 stories tall and feature luxury residences, hotel suites and a 4,500-square-foot ground-floor restaurant that will be open to the public.
East of Orange Avenue, Sarasota's main street has a far cry from its bustling downtown vibe. But the SOTA Hotel & Residences, scheduled to break ground this summer, could change that. We wrote about plans for the 16-story complex last year while it was awaiting final approval from the City of Sarasota.
The partial approval brings us one step closer to certainty.
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The $115 million project will “elevate the back half of Main Street and better connect it to the other, more vibrant part of downtown,” said Rodrigo Trepp, whose company, Trepp Development, is leading the project.
When completed, it will be the only hotel on Main Street and one of the tallest buildings in Sarasota east of Five Points. Despite a recent surge in development, bringing luxury residential apartment buildings to the downtown core, Trepp believes there is room for more.
“There's a lot of construction going on and prices are high, but I think the real estate market on the West Coast is doing well. You just have to provide a good product and good service,” Trepp said. “Demand remains strong and our prices are relatively competitive.”
Residential condos in SOTA are priced from $1.7 million to $5 million. By comparison, nearby luxury condos such as The Edge, which is expected to break ground by April, are priced from $2.6 million, and recently completed condos at The Collection are priced from $2 million, with just one unit left available for sale.
In total, SOTA will feature 35 condominiums across six floors, 120 hotel rooms managed by Hilton Tapestry Collection and a 4,500-square-foot restaurant on the first floor.
SOTA will be built on about a half-acre lot at the corner of Goodrich Avenue and Main Street. The property currently houses three single-story buildings — Il Panificio, Main Street Shoe Repair and Fringe Spa Salon — which are scheduled to be demolished in May. Construction on SOTA is expected to break ground in June 2023, and the new building will take over Il Panificio's address at 1703 Main Street.
Il Panificio has been a favorite since 1991, but if you've been lamenting the loss of its famous pizza, fear not. Nick Melone, whose grandfather started the place, is revamping the SOTA restaurant and reopening it to the public. At 4,500 square feet, he may not be able to recreate the laid-back neighborhood pizzeria feel that Il Panificio is now known for, but Trepp is excited to bring “something diverse, upscale and creative” to the space. “God willing, Il Panificio will be there forever,” Melone says.
Hospitality Group Sarasota Portfolio V LLC, which owns SOTA, purchased the land for $5 million from NCN Realty LLC of Sarasota on March 29. NCN Realty is registered in the name of Nick Meloni's sister, Tracy Meloni.
SOTA, a suffix derivative of Sarasota, is Trepp's first mixed-use project in Florida. A native of Bolivia, Trepp had previously renovated single-family homes in Fort Lauderdale, but fell in love with Sarasota when he visited his current investment partner Mike Ealy in Ohio with his family. Trepp met Ealy on LinkedIn during the pandemic lockdown in 2020 and began talking about business. When they eventually reunited in their hometown, “my wife and kids fell in love with the place,” Trepp said. The family plans to relocate to Lakewood Ranch soon.
SOTA blends both hotel and residential elements, allowing revenue from the residential portion of the project to cover initial costs and generate ongoing profits for the hotel. Residents and guests will have access to many of the same amenities, located on the building's fifth floor along with the hotel lobby. Both the hotel and residences will have their own elevators and entrances.
These amenities will include a fifth-floor anchor restaurant and lounge (available exclusively to residents and hotel guests), a pool and a spacious pool deck with outdoor dining, as well as a fitness center, private residential massage rooms and meeting space.
The two- and three-bedroom condos range in size from 1,800 to 2,500 square feet. One-bedroom condos are not included in the site plan. Five penthouses are located on the top floors and feature private residential club rooms, catering kitchens and outdoor terraces with sunset and water views.
“It's nice to have a little variation on the same project, and we brought in strong geometric shapes to connect the vertical while still clearly separating the different functions of the building,” says architect Gary Hoyt of Sarasota-based Hoyt Architects, which has designed a number of similar projects, including the 18-story The Jewel and One Park. While he's hesitant to pigeonhole SOTA into a particular style, he acknowledges that its modern look “reflects the times.” The interiors will be designed by New York-based architect Andre Kikoski.
The building would be built on top of a four-story, 121-car parking garage that would provide valet parking for hotel guests and dedicated parking spaces for the residential units.
Drivers will enter and exit via Goodrich Avenue.
Trepp imagines SOTA will attract “people who want to be spontaneous, who want to feel young, who want to enjoy life and all the great things that downtown has to offer.”
New mixed-use building changes face of Main Street