Overview of the progress on the Sarasota Bayfront – July 2016
An expansive piece of waterfront property on the Sarasota Bayfront is the focus of committed community and city leaders. With the extensive interest in any downtown Sarasota property, the watchful eye of Bayfront 20:20 and their ability to create an inclusive discussion, has resulted in a comprehensive strategy to protect the community arts and cultural integrity. Their initiative to re-imagine 42-acres on the city’s bayfront around the Van Wezel as a premier arts and cultural district has made tremendous progress toward reality.
Protect and Preserve
The project has made great strides toward a thoughtfully crafted and executed strategy for turning community-grounded principles into a firm plan for enhancing open space, constructing arts-and-education venues and identifying the finances necessary for creating a spectacular, sustainable public space on 42 waterfront acres. That city-owned property includes the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, the Sarasota Orchestra headquarters and an array of civic buildings and spaces.
Bayfront 20:20, a community-based organization formed in 2014, deserves immense credit for engaging citizens and a wide range of groups in a public process that has moved the initiative forward and to this point.
Project Oversight
That planned nine-member board will include a city representative and representatives of area arts and cultural groups to oversee the detailed process of master planning the ambitious project.
The unprecedented “once-in-a-generation” planning process is expected to take about 18 to 24 months to complete, said Jon Thaxton, an early leader of the initiative and an executive for the Gulf Coast Community Foundation.
The planning organization and the firm it hires will have two specific tasks as it develops the formal master plan: Detail financing options for the project — whose total cost hasn’t even been contemplated yet — and recommend a structure to operate and manage the area once it’s built, Klauber said. This planning and designing phase has an anticipated budget of up to about $2.5 million and will operate per open-government laws, Thaxton added.
Bringing Together Foundations
This spring, Klauber and Bayfront 20:20 leaders held a meeting with six major foundations and received widespread support and recommendations for the planning process.
The groups included the Gulf Goast Community Foundation, Sarasota Community Foundation, Patterson Foundation, Charles & Margery Barancik Foundation, William G. and Marie Selby Foundation and Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.
Sarasota City Commission
The City Commission will remain in the loop throughout the two-year process with regular updates and will ultimately have to approve whatever plans come forward, but commissioners’ comments Monday suggested that excitement about the plans already is brewing.
“At the end of the day, we could take all this to the City Commission when it’s done, and they could say no — that’s the gamble,” Klauber said after the meeting. “But we’ve seen great support from this, and what they’ve said today I think puts this on the fast track.”
A delegation of about a dozen city and Bayfront 20:20 leaders, including city manager Tom Barwin and commissioner Susan Chapman, visited Carmel, Indiana, for inspiration last week. The city’s 88-acre arts and cultural district was built using tax-increment financing and public-private partnerships, which could serve the bayfront project well, they said.
Patterson Foundation
The Patterson Foundation is the first group to publicly announce its commitment to the Bayfront 20:20 initiative.
The foundation will give up to $300,000 to the expected 2-year, $2.5 million master planning effort to reimagine 42 acres on the city’s bayfront around the Van Wezel as a premier arts and cultural district.
The commitment includes an initial $100,000 toward the formation and work of the Sarasota Bayfront Planning organization, a new nonprofit board that will work directly with a professional project manager and planning firm to design the site.
GWIZ
The Sarasota City Commission has directed staff to estimate the cost of removing asbestos and demolishing the structure, for which the city has been paying roughly $40,000 annually to maintain. The price tag for demolition will range from $130,000 to $225,000, according to city Asset Manager Rob Schanley.
Sarasota Herald Tribune, Sarasota Observer – July 2016
