FORT WALTON BEACH — Developers of the Landmark Center downtown say the project is on schedule.
Ken Wright of Ft. Walton Development Partners updated the Fort Walton Beach City Council on the project’s progress Tuesday night. Since the beginning of the year, Wright said the developers have spent hundreds of hours and tens of thousands of dollars addressing the design of the Hilton Home2 Suites hotel, condos and restaurant and retail space.
“Ultimately, we want to build something that’s the biggest, grandest thing in Fort Walton Beach,” Wright said Wednesday morning. “We’re going to do it right. This is not just ‘go build a building.’ This is Hilton. This is condos. This is retail stores. This is a parking garage. This is the biggest thing to hit Fort Walton Beach in decades.”
Landmark’s development agreement with the city was executed April 29. It gives the developers until Oct. 29 to apply for a building permit.
Read the development order. >>
Before the city can approve a building permit, the developers must submit an amended development order and complete the property transfer and grant of easement related to the parking garage.
City Manager Michael Beedie said those items must be submitted to the city by the end of July to meet the project’s final Oct. 29 deadline.
“The biggest item is the development order amendment,” Beedie wrote in an email Wednesday. “In order to submit the application, a full set of civil drawings is required. It will then take four to six weeks for staff to review the submittal, which would put us into the end of August or middle of September. Then, if everything is approved by staff, the development order could go to City Council in late September or early October.”
Wright told the City Council on Tuesday that the developers have had conversations with the project’s lenders - the Kendall Phillips Group out of Birmingham, Ala - about providing additional funds so the project can be expanded beyond the current 122,000 square feet.
The Landmark Center, proposed for the intersection of U.S. Highway 98 and Perry Avenue, was announced in 2006. Current plans call for 90 hotel rooms, 25 loft condos, a swimming pool and 31,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space.
Contact Daily News Business Editor Dusty Ricketts at 850-315-4448 or dricketts@nwfdailynews.com. Follow him on Twitter @DustyRnwfdn.
