CHANNEL DISTRICT - For someone who has sat through a dozen or so condominium project presentations over the last several years, Genie White doesn't often see anything vastly different proposed for this former warehouse area close to downtown.

But White, president of the Channel District Council neighborhood group, said the developers of two proposed projects are stretching in a welcome way.

"I'd really like to thank them for bringing the new and unusual to us," White said of Murf Klauber's Tampa International Technology Center and Mercury Advisors' Del Villar.

"I think what you're seeing now is quality and then some," Channel District resident Francine Messano said. "Hopefully, our community is known as the place to be innovative."

Klauber said he felt as if he were chasing rainbows in trying to solidify his plans for a luxury hotel and condominium complex along the Ybor Channel.

"I've spent over five years trying to get ready to go," he said at last week's Channel District Council meeting. "It's the longest gestation of any dream I've had."

Klauber has in mind "a Tampa icon."

He plans a "crystal palace," two towers of twinkling glass. Fairmont Hotel & Resorts would occupy a 38-story structure next to the Tampa Port Authority complex; the other tower would have 200 condominiums.

Blake Middleton, whose New York City company Handel Architects is designing the Technology Center, describes the project as "a set of glass sails." He didn't want a monolithic structure that blocked views of the gritty port.

The structures will use photovoltaics, a technology that converts solar energy into electricity. A transparent film applied to the windows will store solar energy.

The 349-room hotel and condo tower would be on a somewhat isolated 11-acre site next to the Channelside Drive route of the streetcar, and city urban planner Wilson Stair said he wants to ensure the project is incorporated into the streetscape.

"These structures could well be a gateway" to the community, Stair said. "We want to make sure they treat the street level with care."

Klauber said he plans a ballroom and restaurants fitting the hotel's five-star rating, plus teleconferencing rooms. He said he was inspired by the Four Seasons in Miami, also designed by Handel Architects.

Prices haven't been set, but the project will be in the luxury category for hotel rates and condos. But Klauber said there should be a sense of comfort and relaxation similar to the Colony Key Tennis & Beach Resort, a Longboat Key property he purchased in 1969.

"I know condos aren't selling," he said.

But he said he believes there's a need for upscale housing for empty-nesters looking to downsize.

Klauber's project is set for a city council zoning hearing March 22.

On March 8, the council is set to consider zoning for Del Villar, the third Channel District residential project for Mercury Advisors.

Partners Ken Stoltenberg and Frank Bombeeck, also developers of Grand Central at Kennedy and The Martin, plan a 33-story, 120-unit condo tower on less than 1 acre at the southwest corner of Channelside Drive and Whiting Street.

All units would be 1,170 square feet and have two bedrooms, starting in the $300,000 range. The complex would include 1,000 square feet of retail and feature a cascading wall of water on one side of the building.

The challenge will be to provide parking.

Stoltenberg likes the idea of a separate automated parking garage and has been talking with Clearwater's Robotic Parking about a 250-space garage about 40 feet to 50 feet high.

Dennis Clark, Robotic Parking's chief executive, said using an automated garage is similar to pulling into a drive-through car wash, with the vehicle resting on pallets.

Stoltenberg said such a garage would require 175 square feet per vehicle, compared with up to 700 square feet in a regular garage.

He wants the garage to be made of glass and support a rooftop garden of plants and flowers.

"It will be a meadow in the sky," Stoltenberg said. "And the garage will be built so all the cool machinery that makes it work won't be hidden."

Reporter Janis D. Froelich can be reached at (813) 835-2104 or jfroelich@tampatrib.com.