City ponders final downtown CRA priorities

Although the downtown Community Redevelopment Area is expiring Sept. 30 — well, depending on whom you ask — the city still has millions of tax dollars available to spend on projects in the heart of the city.

On Monday, the city’s downtown and Newtown Community Redevelopment Agency Advisory boards met with city commissioners to discuss plans for that money. Staff and advisory board members have identified two specific downtown priorities.

The downtown CRA, created in 1986, was approved to eliminate slum and blight conditions in downtown Sarasota. The funding mechanism uses city and county property tax revenue from within the area’s boundaries to pay for projects in the district.

The top project for the Downtown CRA Advisory Board is an effort to redesign Fruitville Road between U.S. 41 and U.S. 301. Although the project is still in its design phase, CRAAB Chairman Michael Beaumier said the group sees the planned improvements as crucial for the growth of the redeveloping Rosemary District.

“Traveling across six lanes right now is kind of taking your life into your own hands,” Beaumier said of the road.

Already, the project had been budgeted for $2.16 million in CRA funds. Under the revised plans, the city would use an additional $1.2 million on those plans — still just a third of the projected $9.8 million project cost. 

City Chief Planner Steve Stancel said the city could pursue other public funding options, taking several years to phase in the changes.

The second prioritized downtown project is a free on-demand transportation service. The city is drafting a request for proposals in search of a vendor to oversee that program, with about $435,000 in CRA funds available for it.

Modeled after services in places such as Delray Beach, the city hopes a pilot program could prove a viable, long-term solution to reducing roadway congestion.

“The concept of the project would be to provide a one- or two-year subsidy,” Stancel said. “We’d mandate the provider be able to sustain it after the pilot project is over with no further subsidy.”

The vast majority of the reallocated money — nearly $764,000 — would come from scaling back plans for wayfinding signage in the downtown CRA.

City vs. County

On Tuesday, Sarasota County officials rebuffed the city’s claim to an additional year of CRA cash.

In September, the County Commission voted to end the downtown CRA; at the time, both governments seemed to agree the agreement would expire this fall.

In April, the city advanced the argument that the CRA shouldn’t expire until 2017. Although the original 1986 agreement called for a 30-year program, the payments into the CRA trust fund didn’t begin until 1987 — which means the county should be required to make a 30th payment at the beginning of the next fiscal year, city officials have said.

Following Tuesday’s County Commission meeting, the board sent a letter to the city formally rejecting the request for funding. City Manager Tom Barwin said he was disappointed by the county’s decision, but not surprised — and he remains convinced the city is due one last round of funding.