Former Sarasota mayor laments some aspects of downtown master plan

When it comes to experiencing the evolution of Sarasota since the 1950s, few can claim to have the historical perspective of former Sarasota City Commissioner and Mayor Mollie Cardamone. 

Arriving here with her family on VJ Day in 1945, the raucous celebration surprised them as soldiers based at what is now Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport filled the streets in celebration. 

“I'm sure my folks wondered what we were coming to because of no car radios then that would announce that,” she recalled.

A graduate of Sarasota High School and Florida State University, Cardamone returned to the city after marriage and was a member of the first faculty of Riverview High School when it opened in 1958.

In 1986 she was a member of a committee that wrote a new city charter, co-founded the Coalition of City Neighborhood Associations in 1990, and elected to the City Commission in 1993, going on to serve two terms as mayor.

During her tenure, the city set about updating its downtown master plan with the help of New Urbanist Andres Duany and the Miami-based architecture and town planning firm Duany Plater-Zyberk, now branded DPZ CoDesign.

Through that effort is the creation of the Sarasota Downtown Master Plan 2020, a plan now in the initial stages of a refresh via the 13-member Downtown Master Plan 2020 Update Committee.

At its May 28 meeting, the committee invited Cardamone and four other city residents and leaders — who were at ground zero in the development of the current plan — to provide a historical perspective as it sets about its quest to reimagine its future. Joining her was David Smith , the city’s manager of long range planning; commercial real estate broker John Harshman, attorney Bill Merrill and Gillespie Park Neighborhood Association leader Linda Holland.

Cardamone recalled a downtown when she and her husband owned a retail store, Children’s World, for 37 years. There was a train station at the location of Mattison’s and another station on the east end of Main Street. There was a Greyhound bus station. Retailers included J.C. Penney and Sears besides dress shops, shoe shops and the venerable Gator Club. 

“So you ask what happened? Malls came to America,” Cardamone said. “Developers developed big projects outside of cities. They sucked the businesses out of downtowns all over America, leaving abandoned and destroyed towns.”

Prior to the 1986 and 2020 master plans, downtown Sarasota became much the same. Fewer businesses resulted in reduced activity as slum and blighted conditions took over. Cardamone and Holland had heard of this new concept called New Urbanism and about a conference in Portland, Oregon, where one presenter was Duany himself, who had drawn recognition for helping design the Seaside development in the Panhandle. 

Naturally, when it came time to select a consultant for the Downtown Master Plan 2020, Duany was at the top of the list.

The concept did not come without a measure of controversy, particularly regarding Duany’s insistence on administrative approval of downtown developments, providing they conformed to the zoning code, one he developed and left in the city’s hands for refinement. 

Cardamone pressed the commission to adopt Duany’s plan verbatim, a vote she lost. It took another three years for staff to tweak the master plan and accompanying zoning code that were eventually adopted.

“I think that was a huge mistake,” Cardamone said. “I think we should have done what I thought we should have done. It wouldn't have taken three years to work out some little bugs. We had a collective vision for our downtown to be walkable, with buildings built to the street, for interesting windows, restaurants and galleries and retail shops. We never envisioned our downtown to be a bar scene as it is today, with all the problems of excessive loud partying.”

Despite the best efforts of the current master plan, Cardamone said she laments what she described as a downtown that is too loud, fosters too many bar fights, has too many homeless and noisy traffic, all of which collectively fall short of the desired peaceful and walkable downtown the 2020 plan envisioned.

“We failed in keeping the desired walkability effort,” she said.

She closed by telling the committee members they have a chance to address those shortcomings with their master plan update.

“I will remind you that more than 125 years our forefathers decided that our downtown needed a plan, and they had the best town planner in America at the time by the name of John Nolen,” Cardamone said said. “Our commission hired Andres Duany, a highly recognized planner, to master plan our downtown area 25 years ago. I ask you to honor those great planners by finding the absolute best planners for our city. 

“I have always referred to the city of Sarasota, as a world-class small city. It still is, and now you have the awesome responsibility to take us to another new level.”