Planning commission OKs recommendation to rezone downtown lot for five‑story mixed‑use building

Planning Commission members voted to recommend approval of a rezoning request for the property identified in the application as 102 Sixth Avenue North, a roughly half‑block site in the downtown community redevelopment area, moving the application to city council for final action next Monday. The applicant is Corner Lots Development Group; the owner is listed in the application as 10 36 Beach Boulevard Inc.; the agent is Driver McAfee Hawthorne (counsel Cindy Trimmer).

Why it matters: The rezoning would allow the applicant to redevelop an erstwhile 1975 strip commercial center into a five‑story, mixed‑use building (the applicant said the upper floors could be market‑rate residential units or hotel rooms). The project is designed to place commercial uses on Sixth Avenue North and First Street to reinforce the downtown pedestrian corridors and to deliver an internal parking garage meant to serve the building and provide public parking in an area where off‑street capacity is limited.

Staff told the commission the application met the standards of the downtown community redevelopment plan and the redevelopment district (RD) standards of…