Goodwill Wins Another Round for New Store

Goodwill Industries Manasota won another round Monday for .

The City Commissioners unanimously voted to deny hearing an appeal of the store’s site plan and turned down a request for a public hearing on the matter. An appeal of the Planning Board’s decision could still go to Circuit Court due to Monday’s decision.

“I am glad that we have well informed community leaders,” the Rev. Donald Roberts of Goodwill told Patch.

The commissioners chose not to comment on the motion. Folks who opposed the plan were vocal as they exited the meeting, hurling insults at the commission.

The 30,000-square-foot superstore will be relocated to 5100 N. Tamiami Trail, scheduled for a January 2013 opening and has the same zoning has.

The store's 46 employees will be transferred to the new store, which will hire 24 additional employees, said LuAnne Kirschner, spokeswoman for Goodwill Industries Manasota.

City Attorney Robert Fournier wrote in a memorandum to the commissioners that the site plan should only be denied if the zoning code might not have been satisfied, criteria might not have been applied or followed and information might have been provided in error to the Planning Board. The commissioners would have needed a super majority to overturn the plan.

Robert Casella, who filed to appeal the plan, is disappointed, but had a feeling the hearing wouldn’t come.

“It’s like climbing Mt. Everest to get four out of five commissioners to agree on anything,” said Casella, a member of Citizens for a Responsible North Trail Development. Casella jointly appealed the site plan along with Mel Harner and Scott Eller.

Approving the plan with the North Trail zoning is “preposterous,” he said because he believes the store is doing more industrial-type warehousing than what a retail store should.

“I didn’t hold out great hope for this part of the process,” he said.

Casella continues to object to the plan because of the trucks, calling the store a “distribution center” and that the truck traffic would be at an intersection without a stop light trying to make a turn.

However, Florida Department of Transportation did approve Goodwill to improve truck and traffic access and egress at the new site and Goodwill will provide an extra turn-in lane, which they were not required to construct, Goodwill officials said.

North Sarasota resident Anne Fordham showed up at the meeting and called the commissioners’ decision “a travesty.” She disagrees with the Goodwill, too.

“It’s just not a super store,” she said. “It belongs in an industrial zone.”

Not so, Goodwill said.

Goodwill has a distribution center on 15^th Street that will be remodeled in 2012 or 2013, Goodwill officials said. That operation will not move to the new store.