What should St. Armands Circle look like in 20 years?

Flood control, traffic solutions and upgraded infrastructure dominate the first of two forward-looking sessions for St. Armands Circle.

By Andrew Warfield
| 5:00 a.m. March 4, 2026

At a St. Armands Visioning Session held at Mote Marine Laboratory’s Keating Marine Education Center Thursday, Feb. 26, participants were asked to write on and place note cards on a vision board. On one side, participants wrote on yellow index cards what their favorite things about St. Armands Circle were, and on the other side the most significant areas for improvement were written on blue note cards.

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How to determine what the future of St. Armands Circle holds two decades from now is a complex subject, so much so that the city of Sarasota has, quite literally, procured a Brain to help chart its course.

David Brain, a professor of sociology and environmental studies at New College for 34 years and principal of Civic Design Strategies of Sarasota, facilitated the first of two visioning sessions for St. Armands on Feb. 27. At the Mote Marine Keating Marine Education Center on City Island, he led some 160 participants spanning from the Sarasota mainland to Longboat Key.

A second session is scheduled for April 13 at the same location to present the gathered data and to further discuss how to best preserve and enhance the barrier island’s business district and resolving, to the extent possible, persistent flooding and traffic concerns.

“St. Armands is not just important for the people who live here and our friends on Longboat Key. It's important to the city, the county and the region,” interim City Manager Dave Bullock told the group at the outset. “We’ve all been through an interesting year and a half since the storms; we've learned a lot of lessons. As we began to talk about what happened on St. Armands in the past, we began to ask, 'How do we try to plan for a better future?'”

Former Sarasota Interim City Manager Dave Bullock spoke to participants at the St. Armands Visioning Workshop Thursday, Feb. 26 at Mote Marine Laboratory’s Keating Marine Education Center. — Former Sarasota Interim City Manager Dave Bullock spoke to participants at the St. Armands Visioning Workshop.

David Brain facilitated the City of Sarasota’s St. Armands Visioning Workshop Thursday, Feb. 26, held at Mote Marine Laboratory’s Keating Marine Education Center. — David Brain facilitated the city of Sarasota’s St. Armands Visioning Workshop.

Both flooding and traffic concerns were common themes among the reports presented by each of 20 roundtable groups following a 45-minute process of discussing and ranking key issues in addition. That included listing non-starters, namely hotels, although one table allowed for one on the former Wells Fargo bank site just off the Circle.

Then there is the conundrum presented by the desire to attract more visitors to St. Armands Circle while at the same time reducing traffic.

Almost every table report mentioned flood mitigation, although that planning is already underway by Sarasota County, which has allocated $13.5 million in federal money to upgrade the island’s stormwater mitigation system. The county’s new stormwater director, Ben Quartermaine, was present at the session.

My vision for St. Armands is …

Here are some of the things stakeholders expressed they want — and don't want — for the Circle.

“No high-rises. Maintain, two-story scale. No residential in the Circle.”
“No hotels or vacation rentals.”
“Improve traffic safety and pedestrian safety.”
“Maintain similar look of quaint shops and unique businesses as opposed to chain restaurants.”
“A market or grocery store option.”
“A healthy infrastructure that can withstand natural disasters with hardened structures.”
“A clean, well-maintained Circle with high-end shops and restaurants.”
“No standing water after heavy rains.”
“Upgrade the Circle center palm trees with lights year-round like they do at University Town Center.”
“Live music as well in the Circle.”
“Vibrant high-end shopping district featuring diversity of shops and cafes with outdoor seating.”
“Traffic and noise control with no trucks or loud vehicles with a single lane for cars.”
“Free shuttles and micro-transit.”
“Improved building architecture to elevate and mitigate flooding.”
“Additional modes of transportation or alternate access like bridges or ferries.”
“No empty storefronts or ratty buildings.”
“Improve the esthetics of the circle like consistent look and feel, architecture, storefront signage, sidewalks, streetscapes etc.”
“Vibrant entertainment, live music, movies, destinations, art festivals and community gatherings.”
“No parking on the inside of the Circle.”
“A bridge connecting Longboat to Sarasota.”
“Restore St. Armands to its original charm with boutique stores only.”
“Design Circle Park to draw people in with more creative landscaping, lighting, small cultural events, classical and jazz concerts.”
“A majestic entrance with royal palm trees introducing you to the true gem of Sarasota.”
“Have a village feel, not feel like downtown.”
“No Benderson-style holiday.”
“No more parking structures.”
“Minimize traffic with a new bridge from either Longboat or City Island to bypass the Circle.”
“Only one single hotel on the Wells Fargo lot.”
“Better sidewalks.”
“Better quality shops.”
“Revitalize the Circle to be more pedestrian friendly.”
“Cleaner sidewalks, updated signage and storefronts.”
“A market for locals.”
“Elevate the Circle to avoid flooding.”
“No added bridges.”

So was Chris Goglia, president of the St. Armands Residents Association and a regular advocate for both the homeowners and businesses there.

“I'm overwhelmed by the turnout not just by residents, but people from all over,” Goglia said. “This is heartwarming to see this many people in this diverse group care about the future of St. Armands. I also felt that a lot of the views that we residents have been advocating over the years were reinforced at this workshop.”

At a crossroads

More than a coastal neighborhood and business district, St. Armands is also an economic driver as a popular tourist destination standing literally at the crossroads of access to popular beaches and to residences and resorts on Longboat Key. It’s also at the epicenter of a primary evacuation route.

In other words, it serves many masters as evidenced by the diversity of participants including residents and officials from Longboat Key and the mainland as well as St. Armands. Development and businesses interests were also represented, all thrust together into working groups.

Each of the 20 work tables was facilitated by one city staff member across multiple departments including Planning Director Steve Cover, Public Works Director Nikesh Patel, transportation twins Alvimarie Corales and Corinne Arriaga, planning and building services staff members and more.

Augmenting the data was a vision board at one end of the room with sticky notes highlighting what participants like about St. Armands Circle and what opportunities for significant improvement exist.

“We spend most of our time arguing about maybe 10% of the things that we disagree about, and we actually agree on everything else,” Brain told the stakeholders prior to beginning their work. “There’s a lot that everybody will agree on, and that's what we want to try to identify because that will be the easiest and best way to move forward with the Circle.”

St. Armands Circle a treasure and escape route for Longboaters

For many guests of Longboat Key resorts, St. Armands Circle is an amenity. Longboat Key Club and Resort, for example, shuttles its guests the two-mile ride to the shopping and dining district.

“It is critical to tourism. It’s the jewel of Sarasota, and it needs to be treated that way,” Longboat Key Club Managing Director Rick Konsavage said.

Konsavage said he wants to see St. Armands Circle “bring back the charm it had 15, 20, 30 years ago.” After the meeting, he said the participants all seemed to be on the same page about continued investment in the Circle’s stormwater system, not allowing hotels or increasing density and maintaining traffic flow.

Maintaining traffic flow is something on town leaders’ minds as well, and it goes hand in hand with stormwater drainage. After Hurricane Helene, standing water left St. Armands Circle impassable for most vehicles.

“Our big thrust I think is the fact it’s our exitway,” said Longboat Key Commissioner Gary Coffin. “Without that ability to get off the island and a means of egress, that’s critical for us. Marking the exitway and making the evacuation route more safe, more illuminated and more marked, I think is important.”

Commissioner Penny Gold said she thinks the visioning workshop was “a really good start and a very good place to jump off from for more ideas.” She said she would like to see a traffic engineer look at the St. Armands area to see if there are ways to improve traffic flow.

“I think there’s opportunity for traffic changes that we haven’t even thought of,” Gold said. “If we can get some professional help to think about some new, creative ways to move that traffic, that could be helpful.”

Sarasota City Commissioner Liz Alpert attended and participated in the St. Armands Visioning Workshop Thursday, Feb. 26 held at Mote Marine Laboratory’s Keating Marine Education Center.

St. Armands Residents Association President Chris Goglia points to a map in the middle of the table as participants discussed what their vision for St. Armands Circle in 20 years was. At the visioning workshop, participants were broken into 20 tables to brainstorm before presenting their vision one at a time.

Former three-time mayor Liz Alpert, the only city commissioner who participated in the session, said she was pleased with the turnout, but had hoped for more innovative concepts, which she said she hopes may emerge from the April 13 follow-up.

“The ideas were similar from each table, which on the one hand was a really good thing, because it narrows down what we know what people are looking for,” she said. “But I was also hoping to get some off-the-wall ideas. It goes without saying that you want to protect against flooding, and we're working on that.

“You certainly you want upgraded landscaping, upgraded storefronts and make it a little more appealing, but is there something else we could be doing that would then, help the shops thrive and make it even more of a destination?”

The overwhelming sentiment, though, was maintaining the scale and footprint of the four quadrants on and radiating from the St. Armands Circle.

“People are enamored still by the charm of St. Armands, a one-of-a-kind place that exists nowhere else in the world,” Goglia said. “It needs a refresh, but people like its scale and its variety, and I was really reassured to hear what I heard tonight.”

S.T. Cardinal contributed to this story

author

Andrew Warfield

Andrew Warfield is the Sarasota Observer city reporter. He is a four-decade veteran of print media. A Florida native, he has spent most of his career in the Carolinas as a writer and editor, nearly a decade as co-founder and editor of a community newspaper in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.