Margaritaville Beachwalk has abandoned an ambitious plan to create a dining hub alongside its blue lagoon — and will instead build short-term stay cottages.
The pivot was revealed during a tense Board of County Commissioners hearing Tuesday on the cottages proposal, which eventually passed by a 3-2 vote.
“We had initially planned to bring restaurants to accompany the hotel, surrounding restaurants around the lagoon,” Falcone Group COO Alfonso Costa Jr. told the board. “We’ve been attempting that for years. It’s humbling to say that, unfortunately, we were not able to perform and execute on that business plan.”
Falcone Group partnered with PEBB Enterprises to form Beachwalk Retail LLC. The entity purchased land from Beachwalk’s master developer and is overseeing the Margaritaville project.
Costa said the restaurant vision failed to materialize despite talks with “more than 100 restaurateurs.”
Fysh Bar & Grill and Whiskey Joe’s were touted as potential tenants way back in 2021 — but both of those deals fell through.
Instead, Beachwalk Retail LLC asked the board to allow 68 short-term stay cottages with up to five bedrooms each.
The units would be managed by the Margaritaville Hotel and would not be advertised on AirBnB or VRBO, representatives said.
But a parade of Beachwalk residents voiced their opposition, worrying that the pastel-colored units would introduce hard-partying transients to the otherwise tranquil residential area.
“It was supposed to be a very walkable area of retail and restaurants that we, the residents were all going to access and enjoy,” resident Claire Karp said.
In asking the board to deny the application, she said “larger groups of transient residents tend to disregard noise ordinances or management rules” and that “we are not a party community.”
Objectors also chafed at the notion that cottage residents would be given access to their amenities — including the lagoon.
“We have not come to an agreement on the ability to access the lagoon,” Costa said when pressed on the issue by Commissioner Krista Joseph. “So as of right now, we do not intend, or we do not have the ability to access the lagoon based on the current business plan.”
Project representative Ellen Avery-Smith of law firm Rogers Towers said the cottages can’t be occupied by the same person or group for more than three consecutive months.
She told the board the hotel management company will oversee security, cleaning, trash management, deliveries and landscaping.
Developers argued that the cottage plan is preferable to the likely alternative — another big box store looming over Beachwalk.
“It’s kind of offensive that we’re being accused of not trying to find something compatible with the neighborhood,” BRL official Evan Rosenblatt said. “Instead of looking at the back of another Walmart across the lagoon, these are hotel cottages that are very compatible and comparable to the exact architecture of the houses that surround the lagoon.”
The final vote was 3-2, with commissioners Henry Dean, Roy Alamo and Christian Whitehurst approving the plan.
Sara Arnold and Krista Joseph voted thumbs down.
