Belleair Bluffs Hotel

The Belleair Bluffs Hotel is a 100-room boutique hotel planned by local hotelier Tony Utegaard for a vacant 1.67-acre parcel on West Bay Drive, between Bluffs Plaza and the Belleair Causeway bridge that leads to Belleair Beach and the Gulf. The roughly 75-foot building takes a classical, Mediterranean-leaning form with arched windows, balustraded terraces and a columned porte-cochere. A third-floor pool deck sits above the drive-up entrance, and the top floor is reserved for a high-end restaurant with a patio and a quiet outdoor seating area looking toward the Intracoastal. The development agreement also allows a ballroom and meeting rooms, with guest parking, deliveries and services kept to the front of the building, away from the neighborhood behind it. The project follows Belleair Bluffs' recent changes to its transient lodging rules for the commercial corridor along West Bay Drive.