Downtown merchants eager to protect landscaping

Downtown merchants are annoyed and frustrated with the way their downtown plant beds and $330,000 worth of landscaping improvements now look after pedestrians trampled the plant projects during weekend events.

Downtown Improvement District Operations Manager John Moran took photos of pummeled plants and bushes during and after the Presidents Day weekend art fair. His pictures showed people walking through bulbouts and street vendors using plants and bushes like walls, on which to lean their goods.

Moran also offered up pictures of vendors stockpiling merchandise in Selby Five Points Park during events and questioned whether that is a city permit-enforcement issue. Moran explained that a city ordinance states that “set-up of displays, merchandise and/or vendors is strictly prohibited on (Selby) park’s grass area, landscape beds and center paver pathway.”

“We can’t continue to spend money replacing plants that are trampled from a weekend of events,” Moran told the DID board members during their Feb. 21 meeting. “You don’t want to fight a losing battle, maintaining something that doesn’t have a fighting chance.”

DID Chairman Ernie Ritz and the rest of the board members agreed with Moran’s suggestion that they collaborate with city staff, to take a comprehensive look at Sarasota’s green-space ordinance, which was designed to create a uniform look for landscaped areas throughout downtown.

“We put in so much money for these plants all the time, and now all we have is mulch on the ground and strangling, dying plants because people walk all over them,” Ritz said.

During a recent visit to St. Armands Circle, Ritz said he noticed that its Business Improvement District had funded a variety of landscaping improvements, including the erection of barriers comprising bricks stacked at least five high, around plants and palm trees.

“It looks really nice and there’s no way to trample the plants,” Ritz said. “There are solutions out there to protect the landscaping.”

When design consultants presented the DID with potential landscaping options for a future roundabout at Gulfstream Avenue and U.S. 41, the DID said that marked the perfect opportunity to figure out what kind of landscaping design should be created for all of downtown, before horticultural elements for the future roundabout were selected.

City Planner Alex Davis-Shaw explained to the DID that Florida Department of Transportation-approved funding for that roundabout and its landscaping was too far in the future to be discussed.

“We don’t know if FDOT is going to buy into this roundabout funding right now or not,” Shaw said.

Nonetheless, the comments led the DID board members to allow Moran to work with city staff to create an amendment to the city’s green-space ordinance, in an attempt to provide landscaping protection and consistency for all of downtown.

“Our intent should be to engage the city and make a future recommendation on how landscaping should look as part of future Main Street improvements,” said DID board member Tom Manausa.