Master plan helped lift downtown Sarasota from the Great Recession

The evolution of downtown Sarasota since the mid-1990s mirrored that of urban areas across the country. 

Suburban flight had left the core of the city blighted, its streets unsafe and, coming out of the Great Recession, the business district decimated with owners' commercial buildings defaulting on loans as tenants’ businesses failed. Other than the historic neighborhoods that surround downtown — even those succumbing to rising crime and prostitution — residential presence in the downtown core was virtually nonexistent. 

Those were some stories conveyed to the Sarasota Downtown Master Plan 2020 Update Committee at its May 28 meeting as involved residents who witnessed first-hand the transformation the strategy by New Urbanist Andres Duany brought to the city. 

As a commercial real estate broker, John Harshman had a front-row seat to the decline and revival of the central business district.

“Downtown vacancies were high. Storefront vacancies were high. Retail rents were $5 and $6 a square foot, if you could find tenants,” Harshman told the committee of conditions in downtown as the recession was coming to an end in the mid-1990s. “The 1500 block was scary.”

There was one grocery store in downtown, he said — The Granary. It was small — about 4,500 square feet — but it survived, and not necessarily for a good reason. 

“It was successful,” Harshman said, “because all the customers utilized the always available street parking, meaning there was nobody competing for that same street parking.”

Emerging from the recession, there was a glimmer of hope for downtown. The city was successful in securing federal grants for streetscape improvements alongside Main Street in the 1300 and 1400 blocks. It was mostly brick work and landscaping, but it communicated to the community, Harshman said, that the city government wanted downtown to survive and to be successful. 

Around that same time, the popularity of suburban flight here and elsewhere began to wane as the most essential element of the downtown revival began to emerge … a demand for residential development. Business, corporate headquarters and commerce in general will follow residential, and Harshman found himself at ground zero of that movement.

Residential developer The Wynnton Group of Columbus, Georgia, one of Harshman’s clients, came to Sarasota with a plan to build an apartment building at the western edge of the Rosemary District near the corner of Boulevard of the Arts and Tamiami Trail. 

“Their philosophy was that in order to revitalize the area, you have to bring people to it,” Harshman said.

The developer embarked on building the aptly named Renaissance Condominiums, although intended as rental apartments. That plan changed mid-stream.

“The phone kept ringing with people wanting to buy a condo there,” Harshman said. “After a while, we had so much inquiry for condos that it was an indicator that people wanted to move back to the city.”

Many of the inquiries, he said, were from residents of Longboat Key seeking the active lifestyle that a more urban environment can provide. Eventually, the Wynnton Group relented to market demand and shifted to a condominium model. 

“That was really the realization that there was residential demand downtown, and this was happening all over the country,” Harshman said.

At 16 stories, The Renaissance was complete in 2001.

Duany and his firm of Duany-Plater-Zyberk were putting the finishing touches on the Downtown Master Plan 2020, the document that would bring the New Urbanism movement to downtown Sarasota. Among its recommendations was to simplify the city’s zoning code, which had 17 zoning classifications covering the downtown area.

“That's a nightmare for redevelopment,” Harshman said, particularly for large-scale projects that may touch multiple zone districts. “It was really fortuitous and timely that the city did bring Andres Duany into the picture. He brought in a whole new lexicon. He brought in new ideas which were good, but it took the general public, the business community and the neighborhoods some time to process the changes that he was talking about.”

More than the code, Harshman said Duany championed administrative approval throughout all five downtown zone districts, which has met with some criticism over the years that it removes the public from the process.

“He was appalled at Sarasota would have political wars over code details,” Harshman said. “He was a champion of administrative approval. If the project met the code, it should be approved administratively. If it did not meet the code, or if the developer wanted some changes, then full public hearings would take place. 

“The key, though, is having a good, complete and easily understood code.”

Harshman left the committee with some final words of encouragement.

"Recognize that the current plan is generally a very good base plan, and while some tweaks may help, don't diverge for the New Urbanism school and include goals to keep the city clean and safe and facilitate the connection between the city and the bay," he said.