- December 4, 2025
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Whether an extension of the School Avenue greenway should move on to the design and engineering phase became a discussion among the Sarasota City Commission on how to better spend the more than $1 million earmarked for the project.
At its Sept. 2 meeting, Chief Transportation Planner Alvimarie Corales and Senior Transportation Planner Corinne Arriaga presented the proposal to the commission, which continued the hearing to a future date. That’s because commissioners moved to hear more about other projects eligible for the earmarked multimodal transportation impact fee funds in light of robust neighborhood opposition to the greenway.
That resistance came primarily from residents of the adjacent Arlington Park neighborhood and those who live along the proposed 0.44-mile greenway path between Webber and Datura streets, running parallel along U.S. 41 on the southern end of the city. The latter were concerned the project would increase flooding potential in an area that proved prone to high water during the 2024 hurricane season.
“Nothing has changed in the past month,” said Arlington Park resident Rob Grant. “Residents living near the project largely don't want this in their backyards for multiple reasons. Please move on from this proposed extension and put the funds to use on a project that is community-focused and currently supported by residents.”
Arlington Park Neighborhood Association President Flo Entler told commissioners that portion of the citywide multiuse recreational trail isn’t fully funded for construction and the funds would be better spent elsewhere, “Such as Circus Trail that would connect the legacy trail to Bobby Jones (Golf Club and Nature Park). That's connectivity and will be used by the entire community.”
The multimodal transportation impact fees may be used for transportation infrastructure that creates new capacity for walking, biking, driving or riding transit, Corales told commissioners, meaning the new capacity funds may be spent on most phases of the city’s transportation network. They cannot be used for the Bay Runner trolley, operations or maintenance of existing infrastructure or facilities.
Connecting gaps in sidewalks, which are numerous throughout the city, is a permitted use. Commissioner Jen Ahearn-Koch motioned that the School Avenue greenway’s million dollars be redirected to fill some of those gaps in the Newtown community, her move dying for lack of a second.
Instead, the conversation turned toward helping fund extensions of the Circus Trail and the Legacy Trail. Already partially in place, the Circus Trail is proposed to extend from its current terminus at Circus Boulevard into Bobby Jones Golf Club and Nature Park, continuing into Sarasota County's redeveloping 17th Street Regional Park.
Legacy Trail, meanwhile currently ends at Fruitville Road near East Avenue in downtown, and studies continue on an eventual extension to University Parkway near Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport.
A better use of the School Avenue greenway multimodal transportation impact fee funding, commissioners unanimously agreed, is to direct it into a general “bucket,” from which it could be applied to other projects closer to actualization.
After all, they were told, any construction of the School Avenue greenway extension could be as long as a decade away.
“All we were looking at is, is it feasible? Is it cost feasible? Can it even be built? And the answer is, yes, it can,” Arriaga said. “So now we would go into the next phases to determine how is it going to be built, what materials are going to be used, what considerations do we need to include.”
If reallocated, the money could help support a feasibility study to identify the ideal route for the Legacy Trail extension. Circus Trail is closer to reality, Corales told commissioners, which is estimated to cost between $3.5 million to $5 million. Funding is already earmarked by the Sarasota-Manatee Metropolitan Planning Organization, however, “There's still that gap to be filled in order to get the project through construction,” Corales said.
According to the MPO, $550,000 has been committed to the design phase plus $3.25 million for construction. Short of a final cost, that "gap" has yet to be identified.
Either way, the City Commission would possess the latitude to divide the now-formerly earmarked School Avenue extension funds between the Legacy and Circus trails, dedicate them all to one or the other, or to another qualifying project.
Funding pulled from the School Avenue greenway extension, though, doesn’t mean it will never happen. Just not anytime soon.
“I don't think we should kill this connector,” Mayor Liz Alpert said, “because it is one of the key connections for that piece of the trail.”
