SRQ Magazine is pleased to announce Thomas Balsley, FASLA, as the keynote speaker at the SB2 Regional Symposium on March 19, featuring the topic of Creating Vibrant Waterfronts on from 7:30 to 9:15am at The Francis in Downtown Sarasota. Balsley will provide a keynote presentation on case studies featuring successful waterfront projects and he will join the symposium’s panel moderated by SRQ Magazine Executive Publisher Wes Roberts.

Balsley is the founder and principal designer of Thomas Balsley Associates, a New York City-based design firm best known for its fusion of landscape and urbanism in our public parks and plazas. For over 35 years, Mr. Balsley has created public spaces that enrich the community through landscape architecture and urban design. His work often exists in the margins of the city, the industrial edges, the waterfronts and vestigial spaces found in and around the urban grid. Balsley has reshaped social and cultural spaces around the world by sparking the public’s imagination with robust sustainable landscapes that are teeming with public life and a source of civic pride. Among other projects, his firm completed the redesign of the Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park in Tampa. Thank you to keynote speaker sponsor Center for Architecture Sarasota for their support. 

Local panelists include David Gustafson, Executive Director of Bradenton Downtown Development Authority; Johnette Isham, Executive Director of Realize Bradenton; and Drayton Saunders, President of Michael Saunders & Company and representative of Bayfront 20:20, an exploratory community project seeking to create a common vision for the future of the Sarasota Bayfront.  Brian Mariash, Senior Financial Advistor, MLC & Associates will be the opening presenter on behalf of Event Sponsor Merrill Lynch MLC and Associates.

SRQ SB2