90-room boutique hotel proposed for Dunedin Causeway
By Eric Snider
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Jul 31, 2015

A 90-room hotel project on Causeway Boulevard in Dunedin is working its way through city and county approvals.

The five-story hotel is slated to occupy a piece of vacant land on the corner of Michael Place, a few blocks from the water and two miles east of Honeymoon Island State Park.

The developer is AV Florida Holdings LLC, which submitted the plans to the Dunedin City Commission in June. AV Florida's principals are Benedikt Fritzsche and Eliza Garcia, owners of Best Western Plus Yacht Harbor Inn, a boutique hotel on the water at the west end of Main Street in Dunedin. That facility houses Bon Appetit Restaurant & Bar.

The project must go through two approvals from the Dunedin City Commission, and also with Pinellas County, said Lael Giebel, Dunedin's development services project coordinator. The hotel requires a land use change from residential to resort.

That topic goes to the county planning authority on Nov. 10, and returns to Dunedin for a final hearing Dec. 3, Giebel said.

A phone message left with Garcia requesting comment is pending return.

Plans submitted to city hall call the development Dunedin Causeway Hotel. It is unknown whether the facility will fly a brand flag.

Giebel gets the sense that the developers have made a "solid commitment.”

"There are times when a project gets to this point in the approval process and the developers are just feeling things out,” she said. "But I don't get that sense in this case. I think [the developers] have a personal connection to it.”