Future medical site plan in Newtown moves forward

An investor group working to transform the blighted city-owned Marian Anderson property in Newtown into a job-creating commercial site has won unanimous future land use approval by the Sarasota City Commission, paving the way for an eventual purchase of the property.

At its Nov. 3 meeting, the City Commission approved an amendment to the city’s Comprehensive Plan to change the future land use classification of 9.2 acres of the total 13.9-acre parcel from Community Commercial to Production Intensive Commercial. That will allow Newtown Gateway LLC to market the brownfield site for a health care clinic and medical office complex to the north; and to the south and light industrial with a leaning toward logistics for a packing and shipping type of operation. 

A brownfield site is a property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may contain the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant.

Formerly used as a non-licensed landfill, the site is along Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Way to the north and borders commercial uses along U.S. Highway 301 to the west and south. To the east are tracks owned by Seminole Gulf Railway, which serves as a border between the city and Sarasota County.

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The partnership of Newtown Gateway includes Miami-based Woodwater Investments CEO Barron Channer and Newtown residents Keith DuBose, Ernie DuBose and Al Davis. The group intends to purchase the site, which as a brownfield, requires significant environmental remediation prior to being developed, from the city for $50,000.

The comprehensive plan amendment has received the unanimous backing of the Sarasota Planning Board.

Several procedural steps remain before the plan is finalized. The commission must first approve a rezoning of the site, at which time it may seek additional development restrictions. Not the least among them is a proffer to preclude certain uses, namely, to address Commissioner Jen Ahearn-Koch’s concerns, pulverizing concrete.

Her trepidation comes from the long-running dispute over U.S. Recycling, a construction and demolition recycling operation in the Central Cocoanut neighborhood long accused of fouling the air with concrete dust, and now facing potential litigation brought by Suncoast Waterkeeper for violating the Clean Water Act by not abiding by requirements of a Florida Department of Environmental Protection permit. 

“I have no concerns about what you're planning to do with this site,” said Vice Mayor Debbie Trice. “I'm concerned 30, 40, 50 years from now if and when you sell the land, whoever comes in afterward says, “Oh we’ve got an industrial zone. We can do whatever we want,’ … so I'm going to hope that when the commission meets on the rezone that they take that into consideration. But I'm wholeheartedly in support of what you're proposing today."

Representing the Newtown Gateway partnership, Channer said they have no plans to deviate from the uses of the site they devised in 2021 at the onset of their pursuit of the property. He said the partners are willing to proffer that intent, which will be in the requisite second reading to codify the future land use amendment.