A proposed riverfront hotel south of Sebastian’s Working Waterfront that has gone through several design iterations and faced considerable opposition appears to be closing in on county approval, with groundbreaking anticipated this summer.
The project was born several years ago when longtime developer Joel Wynne was kayaking in the Indian River Lagoon just outside the Sebastian city limits and saw an attractive stretch of vacant land fronted by a white sandy beach.
“It was just beautiful to look at, so natural,” said Wynne, president of the Port St. Lucie-based Wynne Building Corporation, noting also that the site had existing docks capable of accommodating up to a dozen boats.
Wynne, who made his name developing residential, retail and hotel properties in St. Lucie County and South Florida, quickly tracked down the owner of the 2.8-acre property and made a successful bid, paying $2.8 million for the parcel.
In the spring of 2022 Wynne submitted a proposal to Indian River County for the construction of what was then called the Sebastian Eco Lodges, with up to 80 rooms. That proposal was later tweaked to become a pitch last April for a three-story Homes2 Suites hotel with 98 rooms at 11360 S. Indian River Dr.
“That’s when the opposition started,” remarks Ed Dodd, mayor of Sebastian. “As proposed, the project is just too out of place for that site. If you look at the hotels that have been built north of Route 60 and east of I-95, those square boxes out there, that’s what this is going to look like.”
Community activist and engineering consultant Terrance McGinn launched an online anti-hotel petition that garnered 3,700 signatures. According to the petition, the proposed project will result in the clearcutting of decades-old trees at the site and will see the construction of “96 parking spaces and a road with a circular turnaround, as well as storm water drains, sidewalks, outbuildings, pools,and patios.”
“This is going to be a disaster,” McGinn told Vero Beach 32963. “It’s going to pollute the lagoon with stormwater, with a site that will end up being 90 percent asphalt and concrete.”
Concerns have also been aired regarding the amount of additional traffic the project will bring to S. Indian River Drive, a narrow, two-lane road that angles over from U.S. 1 to Riverview Park, adjacent to Mulligan’s and the Sebastian Yacht Club.
During a Sebastian City Council meeting last spring, City Manager Paul Carlisle commented on what he called the “dangerous intersection at U.S. 1 and Indian River Drive,” raising additional concerns about traffic and stating that the area does not “have the capacity for the kind of traffic this project will bring in.”
In response to criticism, Wynne tweaked his plan again and the proposed hotel will now be a Hampton Inn with fewer rooms, according to county records.
Because the project site is in unincorporated county outside Sebastian city limits and is properly zoned, Sebastain city officials who object to it have not been able to derail it.
Instead, the project “continues to go through our development and review process,” says Andrew Sobczak, interim community development director for Indian River County,
That process has “seen the developer submitting a plan to us, which we then review and comment on,” Sobczak continued. “They keep resubmitting until they have addressed all of the comments.”
The latest submittal reduced the number of hotel rooms from the original 98 to 82 and shrank the building footprint from 20,777 square feet to 13,667 square feet.
The number of proposed parking spaces has been reduced from 96 to 83.
“I think the people who were originally against this project were in many ways right,” said Wynne. “It was too big. So, we redesigned it, making for a smaller footprint.”
But, continued Wynne, “one of the problems is that Indian River County has a 35-foot height limit, which keeps you at three stories. Other counties have a 40-foot limit, so you can go higher, and that means you’ll end up with a smaller footprint.”
In a letter last fall to Karen Miller, director of Public Works for the City of Sebastian, Sobczak reassured city officials that the project will not commence until all county code requirements are met, and that permits were also required for such endeavors as cutting trees, clearing land and stormwater construction.
To date, the Hampton Inn project has not received final approval from the county’s planning staff, but Sobczak said approval may come soon with the continued back-and-forth tweaking of the project.
Wynne said he would like that date to be sooner rather than later, remarking: “We could start work on it by early this summer.”
