Advisory board recommends downtown grants stay in place

The Community Redevelopment Agency Advisory Board is recommending the Sarasota City Commission keep in place its community development, economic and business-enhancement grant programs.

At its Dec. 15 meeting, the board voted 5-4 to recommend the city continue the grants, which also allow downtown businesses to apply for storefront enhancements.

City senior planner Steve Stancel said the grants, which were approved last year, have led to 30 applications for funding, with only five applications from downtown and 25 coming from Newtown.
Out of those 30 applications, only four projects met the criteria and are moving forward.

The commission almost discontinued the programs in October before deciding to get an opinion from the Community Redevelopment Agency.

Board member Michael Beaumier suggested the city hasn’t done enough to publicize the grants and needs to refocus where its grants go when the city performs major capital-improvement projects.

“We should be spending money in other areas of the CRA outside of Main Street,” Beaumier said. “For instance, in areas where we are repaving Fruitville Road right now, we should be offering grants to improve the look of businesses in that area at the same time.”

Board member Paul Thorpe agreed.

“We need grants to get businesses going again in areas like the Rosemary District as well,” Thorpe said.

Although advisory board Chairman John Harshman recommended the city take a one-year hiatus from the grant programs, he didn’t receive the majority of support from the nine-member board.

“If no one has come forward for grants in the first year and business owners are improving their property in other ways, maybe we can use the funds for something else,” Harshman said.

Thorpe and others disagreed.

“Nobody knew anything about these grants and we didn’t give it enough time to see if the programs will work,” Thorpe said.

After the motion to recommend the continuation of the grants was made, the advisory board also agreed to recommend the grants continue with the following recommendations:

• To increase publicity and promotion of the grants;

• Create a future cap for the grants;

• To tie the grants toward capital improvement projects being performed within city limits.

“If we are going to upgrade Fruitville Road we should get business owners there to upgrade their shops,” Beaumier said. “ If we’re going to construct two roundabouts on Ringling Boulevard, we should target dollars where the construction is happening.”

The grant recommendations will now be passed onto the advisory board, which will make a recommendation to the commission in February.