Visit Sarasota County center coming to Main Street

Beginning this week, Visit Sarasota County will have a new home for assisting visitors to downtown Sarasota.

On Thursday, VSC will open a Visitor Information Center at 1710 Main St., the former site of Firestone Complete Auto Care. The new visitor center will replace the previous location at 14 N. Lemon Ave.

VSC Managing Director Stephanie Grosskreutz said the downtown visitor center has been a valuable resource. With tourism ramping up across the region, people visiting the area often seek assistance as they familiarize themselves with Sarasota.

“They’re a huge economic driver,” Grosskreutz said. “We might be in the information age, but there are a lot of people who really want that personal contact.”

Grosskreutz said the Main Street location offered several advantages over the Lemon Avenue building, chief among them a dedicated parking lot. The new location also offers more permanence than the previous site, a short-term gift.

Property investor Chris Brown bought the former Firestone for $1 million in 2014. Brown, who owns 1.3 acres of adjoining property in the 1700 block of Main Street, has expressed an interest in exploring a larger project on that land in the future. For the next few years, however, Grosskreutz anticipated the building would remain-as is, which inspired VSC to reach out to Brown.

“We didn’t want to see a corner on Main Street just be an empty former Firestone,” Grosskreutz said.

Beyond the group’s general interest in the location, Brown said VSC seemed to want to improve the connectivity between the west and east ends of Main Street. For now, he thinks the visitor center is a good fit for the space — but he’ll eventually circle back around to redeveloping the property.

“As far as the long term plans, I don’t have anything on the drawing board,” Brown said. “But the opportunities are endless, I believe.”

Brown’s downtown portfolio also includes the Fit2Run building at 1400 Main St. and the adjoining property at 1410 Main. Brown said he’s prioritized other projects this year, but he will eventually take some action to move forward at 1410 Main.

“I just have to either decide to do something myself or to start negotiating with potential suitors,” Brown said.