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Island Estates

The Island Estates neighborhood is located on the west side of the city, between Clearwater Beach and downtown Clearwater. Island Estates is located within the City of Clearwater. It is approximately 210 acres in area. The Island Estates neighborhood is usually considered to be all of the land and all of the land uses located off Island Way, north of Memorial Causeway.

Island Estates is a unique neighborhood within the City of Clearwater in that almost every property is on the waterfront. The neighborhood consists of a series of islands and peninsulas that were created through a dredge and fill process. The land for the neighborhood was filled during the 1950s and 1960s. According to Pinellas County plat books, the island was platted for development between 1957 and 1969. The original parts of the community are located adjacent to Memorial Causeway and the later platted lots are further to the north. The lots on the southern end are somewhat smaller than lots on the northern end – which allowed for larger and newer homes toward the north.

The neighborhood is geographically isolated from the rest of the City. It has only one ingress/egress, which is located on the Memorial Causeway. Due to limited access, there is mostly resident traffic and very little tourist traffic. In addition, because there is only one access point to the neighborhood, traffic congestion on Memorial Causeway greatly affects accessibility to the neighborhood.

Most of the neighborhood has residential land use, ranging from large single-family homes to multi-story, multi-unit condominiums. The Institutional area is occupied by St. Brendan’s Church. In addition, there are several Commercial properties in Island Estates. The Commercial district includes a shopping center with a large grocery store, a smaller shopping center, two bank branches, a large restaurant, a marina and some office space. Most of these commercial properties are excluded from the overlay district in order to keep the focus of the plan on the residential areas. One commercial site consisting of eleven (11) townhouse units is within the overlay district. This residential project was included in the overlay due to its similarity of use to the majority of the neighborhood.

Island Estates is a fairly large neighborhood with over 600 platted properties, over 1,500 property owners, and over 3,200 residents. There are several large condominium complexes in the neighborhood, making the resident base large. There are some significant differences in the general municipal demographics and those specific to Island Estates. For example, in Island Estates, the average household size is lower than in the City as a whole. In addition, the age trends show that Island Estates seems to have an older population than the City as a whole. There are significantly more owner-occupied housing units and fewer renter-occupied housing units in Island Estates than in the City. A significant difference between Island Estates and the rest of the City is that the neighborhood has a comparatively large percentage of housing units that are used seasonally, recreationally, or occasionally. Almost twenty percent (20%) of the housing units in Island Estates are part-time residences as compared to eight percent (8%) citywide. Thus, the demographic and housing trends in Island Estates are quite different from those in the City as a whole.

Services on the island include a large supermarket, a convenience store, a gas station, a hair salon, restaurants, banks, a private marina, and other retail businesses. Another amenity for the neighborhood is Sunset Sam Park, which is located on the west end of Windward Passage. In addition, the Clearwater Marine Aquarium and the Island Yacht Club are located on Island Estates.

Island Estates is a very well maintained neighborhood with continually increasing property values. According to property values from the Pinellas County Property Appraiser’s Office, values increased from 1998 to 2000 by approximately ten percent (10%.) Most of the single-family homes were built prior to 1970, but are maintained so that they do not show signs of age. A recent trend in home-ownership is to buy a lot with an older, average sized home, then to demolish the home and build a newer, larger home in its place. In some cases this leads to an imbalance of scale and rhythm along the streetscape.

Island Estates prides itself in having "two front yards." Almost every residential lot has a waterfront, and most single-family residences have docks or boat slips along the seawall. Many of the residents own boats and use them on a regular basis. In general, the multi-family areas have active waterfronts as well, with shared docks, boat slips and waterfront recreation sites. Because of all the waterfront activity, Island Estates’ backyards could be considered a second front yard.