Mote gathers support for bayfront aquarium

Before asking the City Commission to endorse Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium’s plans for growth, Mote CEO and President Michael Crosby has been working to build community support for that vision.

Crosby has recently begun the public push for Mote’s plans for expansion, which include an aquarium on bayfront land near the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall. Mote leaders have said the focus of the plan is on growing the laboratory operations at the existing City Island campus, but the request for five acres of city-owned waterfront property is likely to garner the most scrutiny.

At a September Argus Foundation event, Crosby said Mote has received an endorsement for its vision from the Economic Development Corp. of Sarasota County, the Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce and the Arts and Cultural Alliance of Sarasota County.

When he appears before the City Commission later this month, Crosby hopes to have an even broader base of support.

“This is about the community,” Crosby said. “We need you to be with us, all together, to present this to our leadership here in this city.”

Kevin Cooper, vice president of public policy for the Sarasota Chamber of Commerce, said his organization’s support was largely tied to the growth of Mote’s research arm.

“The prospect of that in terms of job creation, international status and overall economic impact is really positive and interesting,” Cooper said. “It's nice that we don't have to recruit someone here to do that.”

When it came to the precise location of the new aquarium, however, Cooper suggested more details needed to be divulged before the chamber could fully throw its weight behind the plan.

Mote’s public interest in bayfront land coincides with the work of Sarasota Bayfront 2020, a group attempting to develop a master plan and vision for a roughly 75-acre swath of bayfront land. Michael Klauber, chairman of Visit Sarasota County’s board of directors and a leader of the Bayfront 2020 group, believes the causes can dovetail with one another.

During the city-endorsed visioning process, Bayfront 2020 has prioritized getting a broad group involved in the process and avoiding specifics on what goes where.Klauber continued to advocate for a more general conversation, considering the potential needs of other organizations interested in the bayfront land.

Above all, Klauber said, the process of developing the bayfront land in question needs significant community input.

“These are once-in-a-lifetime decisions that we're making that we're going to look back on in 75 years and say, ‘Were those good decisions or not?’” Klauber said.