A special taxing district credited with turning Downtown Sarasota from blighted ghost town to thriving cultural center will sunset next year. 

A long-running debate between city and county leaders came to a quiet close at a Tuesday budget hearing as Sarasota County Commissioners voted unanimously to let the community redevelopment area downtown expire in November 2016, 30 years after the district was created. “We need to cease one effort before we start another,” said County Commissioner Paul Caragiulo. 

The decision stunned city officials, who were still hopeful for a joint effort to explore what an extension of the CRA would specifically entail. “We were taken totally by surprise,” said Mayor Willie Show. “Our last correspondence with the county was that the city had selected a two-member team to talk to the county… I would hope we could go further with the conversation.” And potentially, the matter could be raised anew. The county commission could reconsider its decision and extend the CRA any time until the point when the district expires.

But right now, the county seems divided on the use of CRAs at all. CRAs under Florida law designate a blighted area and fund redevelopment using tax increment funding, meaning that as property within the area boundaries increases in value, the tax revenue from that boost is earmarked for improvements to the area. In Fiscal Year 2013-14, almost $14.5 million in revenue was raised from the Downtown Sarasota CRA and a younger Newtown CRA; the Newtown CRA doesn’t expire until 2047. 

Caragiulo does want to look at the use of an improved CRA in Newtown. The city has explored resetting the property values there to current values; the Newtown values are judged from the height of the real estate market, preventing that district from raising revenue. “The city should have to come up with literal alternative plans,” said Caragiulo, who would like city officials to explore new CRA boundaries. “Stop talking about it and present something.” However, other county officials seem uninterested in new CRAs. County Commissioner Christine Robinson noted at a Tuesday hearing that neighboring counties have seen high portions of revenue set aside for CRAs at the expense of other areas. “We need to be very careful if we ever continue with another CRA,” she said.

County Commissioner Charles Hines shared Robinson’s concern. He said there are options worth exploring with a CRA, and suggested the city might explore including the Bayfront and other potential redevelopment areas in such a district, but did fear that if too many CRAs were established in the county, it could eventually hurt funding for day-to-day obligations. Letting the Downtown CRA expire, meanwhile, will free up funding in the county general fund for general uses. “We can talk about redoing the Bayfront and building a new aquarium. That’s the fun stuff,” he said. “But sometimes we have got to say that today we need to replace a chiller. And that costs how many millions? But that’s your main job, and you have do that before you go to the other stuff.” 

The decision to let the CRA expire goes against recommendations from an ad hoc committee formed to look at the issue, and Andy Dorr, chairman of the Downtown CRA Extension Committee, was disappointed by the county action this week. “I’m not aware of other major tools sanctioned by the state of Florida and used widely in practice that allow you to raise the kind of tax increment revenue and give the sanctioned ability and the control that a CRA has,” he said. It won’t be until the 2030s that the Newtown CRA independent raises decent redevelopment revenue, he said, and to start a new CRA means losing 30 years of increased property values and related tax funding. He also noted extension of the CRA was supported by such diverse groups as The Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce and City Coalition of Neighborhood Associations.