- July 15, 2025
-
-
Loading
Loading
Now that Sarasota County has received approval from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, its plan is to spend, in general terms, $210 million in hurricane recovery grant money. Once applications begin to be accepted by the county, perhaps later this summer, local jurisdictions may submit requests for a share of those dollars.
Dubbed Resilient SRQ, the county’s action plan earmarks buckets of funds for creek dredging, roadway and bridge improvements, flood mitigation and other infrastructure.
The city of Sarasota has drafted plans to submit applications for four projects, including $10 million to address recurring flooding problems on St. Armands Key with an emphasis on one of the county’s economic engines, St. Armands Circle.
The other three project applications, all on the mainland, are Hudson Bayou Resiliency and Stormwater Mitigation, $5.7 million; Whitaker Bayou Resiliency and Stormwater Mitigation, $14.5 million; and Sarasota Stormwater Resiliency and Flood Mitigation Initiative, $11.93 million.
Compelling arguments can be made for each of the city’s proposed projects, but perhaps none more so than St. Armands, which flooded three times during the 2024 hurricane season and has suffered multiple fresh water flood events in recent years.
Consistent failures of the overwhelmed pump and drain system on St. Armands has resulted in regularly flooding businesses in the low-lying St. Armands Circle and the older ground-level homes that surround the business district. Storm surge from both hurricanes Helene and Milton engulfed the Circle with several feet of water, forcing nearly all retailers, restaurants and other businesses to close for weeks and months as they cleaned up, dried up and fixed up their establishments.
“I often hear that St. Armands is the county's number one tourist destination, and if that is true I would hope that the county says, ‘What can we do to protect this asset?’” said Chris Goglia, president of the St. Armands Residents Association. “It's not just the city's asset, it’s the county's asset and they need to make sure that businesses can open in weeks, if not days, instead of months and to make sure that the roads are open so that tourism and commerce can continue.”
Goglia’s assessment of the popularity and economic impact of St. Armands Circle comes with backing by USA Today, which recently named it the seventh best shopping center in the U.S.
On the list of projects proposed for St. Armands are stormwater drainage and pump station upgrades, underground stormwater vaults, permeable pavement and drainage and the purchase of removable flood barriers. City Engineer Nik Patel said those measures aim at mitigating the impact of heavy rain events — not necessarily storm surge from the nearby Gulf shore — that have flooded businesses and homes as the aging pump and drain system. Sarasota County manages the system via interlocal agreement with the city.
Minus the flood barriers, the St. Armands mitigation projects are part of a Complete Streets proposal, which was shelved because of its $45 million price tag and no identified state funding.
St. Armands Circle Association Executive Director Rachel Burns said she would like to see some specifics regarding the projects such as locations of new equipment, what the permeable pavement might include, whether to add any new storm drains, and placement of the stormwater vaults.
Those answers aren’t available yet, Patel said, as infrastructure planning has gone no further than the Complete Streets conceptual stage.
The flood barriers, though, would resemble those successfully deployed by Tampa General Hospital during recent storms.
“They're easily put together, and essentially they're to put around the St. Armands businesses because they got impacted quite a bit,” Patel said. “If we knew a major storm or major flood event is coming, this could provide flood protection for the businesses. It’s also to protect the roadways too. Our plan is to make sure that the evacuation routes clear.”
Burns said any new pumps and drain pipes won’t matter unless there is more outfalls to swiftly remove water from the roadway.
“Two weeks ago, we had a heavy downpour, and all the pumps were working. I drove around, I watched the water swirling, trying to go down the drains but the water coming down was at too fast a rate for the number of drains,” Burns said. “There was no impact on the merchants, but there was water over the curbs, and that just was a regular rainstorm.”
Which projects the county chooses to pursue with the Resilient SRQ funds begins with the Public Works Department — which manages stormwater for the city — and those administering the Resilient SRQ program. Patel said the city is not in a position to advocate for or prioritize its applications with county personnel.
“We are partnering with Sarasota County Public Works to assist them with application process assuming that they want to move those projects forward as part of the program,” Patel said. “We submitted our projects, and if they decide that they want to move forward we're going to be working closely with them to apply for those projects.”
The Sarasota County Commission will ultimately determine which countywide projects put forth by staff will receive funding.
It pleases Goglia and Burns that St. Armands Circle is among those preliminary considerations.
“We are extremely happy that the county and the city are looking to actually make some improvements to St. Armands Circle,” Burns said. “There haven’t been any major improvements to the infrastructure in 20 years. We’re just so happy that people are taking notice, because after last year, I just don't know how a lot of these small business owners would recover if we have that happen again.”
While Goglia urges residents to advocate for the St. Armands projects via the association’s newsletter, as its representative to the Coalition of City Neighborhood Associations, he recognizes all the city’s applications are high priority,
“I'm very aware that it's not just my neighborhood that's having problems,” he said. “I think the Phillippi Creek basin has received the most attention, but the city has the Hudson Bayou and Whitaker Bayou as well and the people in those neighborhoods are very concerned about those waterways and the flooding issues associated with them. There are problems citywide and we're rooting for each other to get attention.”
This story was updated to clarify the application period for Resilient SRQ funds has yet to begin.
