City approves Clearwater Marine Aquarium's expansion plan

The Clearwater Marine Aquarium’s expansion plans have received approval from the city’s Community Development Review Board.About 800,000 people visited the aquarium last year thanks in part to “movie stars” Winter and Hope, the dolphins.Aquarium officials said they need more room.“There’s a problem with cars parking off-site right now, parking in the street, parking in off-site lots, also people walking across the street to come see us, that’s the issue we’re trying to resolve,” said David yates, CEO, Clearwater Marine Aquarium.The aquarium plans to double the facility on its current lot from about 60,000 square feet to about 130,000 square feet.Tanks for Winter and Hope will grow to 1.4 million gallons and a 440-space parking garage will be added.Some Island Estates homeowners attending the meeting said it’s catching them by surprise.“We are bitterly disappointed at the action of this board. To say we were properly advised as homeowners and were included as partners in this is absolutely untrue because we found out about this last Monday, which gave us three business days to respond and a holiday weekend in between,” said Vera Guinan.Residents said the aquarium has outgrown the neighborhood and they’re worried about large crowds and traffic if it expands.“The people that were in the know, that knew this was going on, were not the residents of the island and those are the people who are going to be the most affected,” said Skip Shepherd.Aquarium officials counter that the new plan will actually keep people from trying to park in the neighborhood and keep them on the aquarium’s property instead.“We’ve had a long-standing relationship with Island Estates for many, many years. So this is a big issue. We’re in a residential area. We understand the concerns. But we listen very carefully. For the last few years, I’ve heard a lot about the issue of taking the impact we make outside our facility and put it back on the lot, so we’re doing that right now,” said Yates.The aquarium decided against a plan to build a new, more expensive facility in downtown Clearwater and expand at its current location instead.Yates estimates the expansion will cost less than $50 million. 

City approves Clearwater Marine Aquarium"s expansion plan