Cultural institutions on the Sarasota Bayfront are making plans for future growth and Sarasota city officials may be have started moving forward with ways to chart the waterfront’s future. There remain questions about the future of private land blocks, and of exactly how much activity there should be on public land, but the Sarasota Bayfront 20:20 process is moving forward. 

Michael Klauber, leader of the Bayfront 20:20 group, said he was pleased Sarasota City Commissioners would be considering implementing principles for the future of a 75-acre area of land on the Bayfront. “The goal right now is to get the community, and that includes our city, to adopt these guiding principles,” Klauber said.

At a workshop Monday night, consultants with HR&A advisors shared those principles, developed over more than 70 meetings and partnering with some 30 community groups. “[The Bayfront] has to be activated. Everybody seems to agree that is is an underutilized asset,” said Candace Damon, a consultant working on the Bayfront 20:20 effort. “People want for it to be culturally strengthened.” Right now, the Sarasota Orchestra plans to dispatch a team this month to assess the need for space for growth with the institution, and the Van Wezel Foundation on Tuesday moved forward with a feasibility study to be completed in the next five months. Additionally, other cultural organizations in town have been looking to see if there is space on the Bay; notably Mote Aquarium remains involved in the process..

In the meantime, developers have suggested plans for hotels and convention centers, all the while with some pockets of the community looking toward the creation of a waterfront park. “From what I am hearing from attending several meetings is that the public wants more parkland, as opposed to more buildings,” said Vice Mayor Susan Chapman, “and I listen to the public.”

Klauber, though, said developing the implementing principles should create a guide map for people on either side of that division. “We need to focus on getting a really good crystallized vision of what the community wants to happen,” he said. Once that is finalized, every time someone pushes for park use or new amenities, the principles can be consulted to see if that fits with the vision being developed now. 

Visioning process is far from done. Sarasota County Commissioners this week expressed interest in hearing a Sarasota 20:20 presentation themselves, and Klauber expects to be back in front of City Commissioners in a month to talk about the standards being promoted. 

All involved also say high issues like improving connectivity between the Bayfront and much of north and south Tamiami Trail must be deeply explored. But officials remain optimistic about the movement of the process. City Commissioner Suzanne Atwell likened the efforts to those in places like Chattanooga, Tenn. where riverfront development revitalized the region, but said that will take hard work.