Work starts on 97 downtown Sarasota apartments

Work has officially started on another large-scale residential development in downtown Sarasota.

CORE Construction has started clearing land for entrepreneur Jesse Biter’s BOLD Lofts between Fruitville Road and Second Street adjacent to the similarly-named cowork space. The $21.5 million project includes 97 apartments and up to 6,800 square feet of office space.

BOLD Lofts is slated to open after July 2018, on the sleepier end of Main Street, but at a time when there are more than 1,300 residential units, 290 hotel rooms and 286,000 square feet of commercial and office space planned or under construction in or around downtown.

“I believe we will see a lot more walking in our town in general,” Biter said in an email. “I'm excited to see how our town is going to change with all of these units coming online.”