City sale of Marian Anderson property inches closer

Delayed by the hurricanes of 2024, a proposal to purchase the city-owned 13-acre Marian Anderson site in Newtown is back on track.

Buyer Newtown Gateway intends to divide the property into two distinct parcels: a northern parcel to develop as a health care clinic and medical office complex, which is a permitted use by right under existing zoning; and a southern parcel for light industrial use, which requires a Comprehensive Plan amendment and rezoning. 

The latter also necessitates a second amendment, which was unanimously approved by the Sarasota City Commission at its May 19 meeting, to the May 2023 purchase and sales agreement between the parties.

Once an unlicensed landfill that operated until the early 1960s, the property just west of the railroad track that runs parallel to U.S. 301, has been a challenge to develop because of environmental contamination. The city intends to sell the property to Newtown Gateway for $50,000, heavily discounted because of the required mitigation.

At the time of purchase agreement approval, the timing for the development steps had not yet been determined and the entire process delayed as the city used the property as a vegetative debris staging area following Hurricanes Helene and Milton. That prevented the buyer from accessing the site for approximately seven months, delaying its ability to perform environmental testing and advance the remediation process. 

Photo by Andrew Warfield

With that work now complete, Newtown Gateway has fulfilled several contractual obligations including payment of the required escrow deposit, delivery of a property survey to the seller, notification to the city of specific encroachments, submission of a brownfield site rehabilitation agreement to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and held a community workshop related to the rezoning process.

“The last component of the second amendment would allow, but not require, two separate closings between north and south parcels,” said Wayne Appleby, the city’s economic development manager, telling commissioners. “Obviously, we'd like to have one closing, but each portion of the parcel is going to be on a different track. We don't want to hold up one portion if it's ready for development if the other is going to be a more protracted timeline.”

Several steps toward closing will remain prior to development of the long-vacant property. They include completion of environmental remediation activities on both parcels by the buyer, presentation of the amendment to the Planning Board and subsequently to the City Commission by staff, and submission and processing of a rezoning application by the buyer through the city’s development review process.