Esplanade Club

Esplanade Club is a beachfront condominium tower at 4551 Gulf Shore Boulevard North, in Park Shore. One building, 121 separately deeded homes, built in 1981, with floor plans of 2 and 3 bedrooms.

A concrete tower from 1981 on the Gulf carries a structural question, and that one comes before the floor plan. Two documents answer it: an engineer's inspection of the structure, and the reserve study that costs out the major repairs. Florida requires both of a tower this age. What those two say decides whether the assessment holds level or a repair bill lands on all 121 homes.

What did the structural inspection find?

The first inspection has already fallen due here, and its findings aren't published. Silence is not a clearance. Being due is not being done, and a pass does not mean the work is over. A sign-off can arrive with a long list of repairs stapled to it, so read the report itself rather than somebody's summary of it.

Owners cannot vote reserve money down to nothing any more, and it cannot be spent on anything else instead. Four papers to get hold of before an offer:

• What the engineer found when the structure was inspected.
• The reserve study, and what it says the big repairs will cost.
• The budget, and what it puts into reserves.
• The declaration as recorded, with every amendment, which is where leasing and buyer approval are decided.

None of that is public: the association keeps its documents behind a resident login, so ask for them by name, early enough that what they say can still change your mind.

How many homes are there, and how big?

121, and they stack unevenly. The first floor holds three homes, the second six, and every floor above that carries seven, as does the penthouse level at the top. No floor is numbered 13, so the count jumps from 12 to 14, and with the penthouses that makes eighteen levels of homes.

Four plans repeat through the building, at about 1,580, about 1,790, about 2,290 and about 2,620 square feet under air. The smallest accounts for 33 homes, the two middle plans for 35 each, and the largest for 18. The building's own site quotes bigger numbers for the same homes, so check any figure against the area under air.

Is the building on the beach?

Yes. The site is about 620 feet deep, four and a half acres in all, and its western edge is the water. No other lot sits between the tower and the Gulf, and the beach entrance is off the pool deck. Venetian Village stands about half a mile off along the boulevard.

Is the Park Shore beach park included?

No. The Park Shore Association is a different body from the condominium, formed in 1971 as a voluntary property owners association. It owns a private beachfront park farther along Gulf Shore Boulevard North, and that park is for its members. A membership card is what gets someone in, and an address does not. Members pay yearly dues, and somebody joining for the first time pays an initiation charge as well. Buying here conveys no part of that park, and who may join, on what terms, only the association can tell you.

What is on the property?

The building's own list is long. A heated pool and a spa sit on the beachfront with a sun deck, an outdoor kitchen, gas grills and a fireplace. Above them is an observation deck looking out over the Gulf, and there's an herb garden by the pool and storage for kayaks and paddleboards. On the grounds there are a tennis court, pickleball courts, bocce, shuffleboard, a putting green and a golf practice net. Those last two are practice facilities and there is no course.

Inside there is a fitness center with a dry sauna and a steam room. The social room has a full catering kitchen and a bar, and there's a billiards table, a library, a card room and a conference room seating eight. The building describes its front desk as staffed day and night.

Does a parking space come with the home?

The spaces are deeded rather than handed out by the association, so one belongs to a particular home. Deeds here are written as the home plus a numbered space: "Apartment 204 together with Parking Space No. 83." At least one home carries two of them, so check which space, and how many, belong to the home you are considering. Parking is covered and lit, with charging points for electric cars, a covered bike rack and a car rinse station.

What are the assessments, and what have homes sold for?

Assessments fall due quarterly. Budget around $3,100 a month against them, a planning figure near the high end rather than the bill on any one home. Seven sales are on record, and homes here have sold from around $1.1 million to around $1.7 million. In a building of 121 that is a record of closings, not a picture of what you could buy.

Glass elevators run up through a landscaped atrium in the middle of the building, open to the floors around it. That atrium is the idea Esplanade Club was designed around in 1981, and it is what the lobby opens onto.