The intent of this application is to assign CPUD zoning and a Neighborhood Special District land use designations to property recently annexed in order to construct a 162,020 S.F. Costco Wholesale building with standalone kiosk and fuel facility, 398 residential apartment units, retail and restaurant buildings and approve a Master Site Plan including a connector road between S. Kanner Hwy. and SE Willoughby Blvd.
The applicant is proposing 193,146 sq. ft. of commercial building area and 398 apartment units within 4 (four) 4-storey buildings with a density of 8.1 dwelling units per acre for the 48.99 acre site. The City's Comprehensive Plan, Policy A7.2 Table of Land Use Densities and Intensities allows up to 15 dwelling units per acre for the Neighborhood/Special District Land Use category. The applicant is proposing only 13.1 DU/acre.
Traffic improvements to S. Kanner Highway include the addition of a signalized entry with full turning movement, a left-turn lane for southbound traffic and a right-turn lane for northbound traffic. A controlled directional access median break (left-turn in, right-turn in, and right-turn out only) will be provided at the northern portion of the site. A right-turn in and right-turn out with no median break is proposed for the southern portion of the site. An eight (8) foot wide sidewalk will be constructed within the S. Kanner Highway right-of-way along the western property boundary to connect the existing adjacent sidewalks to the north and south of the property entrance. Pedestrian routes will connect to the sidewalk within the right-of-way to provide access to the buildings. Sidewalks internal to the development shall have a minimum width of 6 feet.
A total of 1,725 parking spaces are provided for the development with the parking for the Costco Wholesale building being sufficiently parked at 1 parking space for every 250 square feet of building with additional parking available for customers that is being offset with additional landscaping at the projects entrance.
The proposed project's master storm water management system consist of a series of interconnected wet detention lakes and dry retention ponds. The system satisfies criteria of the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD), City of Stuart, Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) and Martin County. The proposed system will expand the existing FDOT lake on-site that currently serves Kanner Hwy. The design also includes littoral plantings at the project's proposed lakes and expanded D.O.T. pond that will reduce the storm water system of excess nitrogen and phosphorus and count towards offsetting a portion of the project's tree mitigation requirement. See Attachment B.1 Staff Review
The applicant is asking to depart from the to the City's Land Development Code which may be offset by providing other aspects of the project which exceed code requirements and or are amenities of value to the community. The departure is as follows:
1. Parking Code Section 6.01.13: Multi-family dwelling units (studios or 1 bedroom) require 1.5 spaces per unit; Multi-family dwelling units (2 or more bedrooms) require 2 space per unit. Required parking for the project is 722 spaces and the applicant is providing for 700 residential spaces.
2. Parking Code Section 6.01.14.C Within an large commercial development which provide shopping carts for use by patrons, one parking space per 25 spaces shall be dedicated for the storage of shopping carts. This storage area shall include fence materials to keep the shopping carts in the space. Required spaces to be dedicated for storage of shopping carts is 24 and the applicant is providing 14 spaces for storage.
3. Landscaping Code Section 6.04.07C.5 Interior landscaped islands shall be provided between every ten (10) parking spaces. Each interior island shall be not less than six feet in width. Each interior island shall contain not less than one shade tree and a combination of shrubs, ground cover, grass and mulch. The commercial parking areas for Costco building's parking lot contains 14 rows with more than 10 spaces without a landscaped island. See Attachment B.2 Staff Code Review.