Newsletter 102

NEWS FROM THE SUNCOAST

WELCOME SARASOTA ART MUSEUM

Sarasota Art Museum, the city’s first devoted to contemporary work, is finally open to the public. For the past 16 years, residents of Sarasota have worked to transform the old campus of Sarasota High School into a contemporary art museum. As SAM’s founders originally intended, there will be no permanent exhibitions. It will be a home for temporary, touring exhibitions of contemporary art. Each exhibit will generally be on display for four or five months. The museum opens with a major retrospective of the work of Brazilian-born artist Vic Muniz. To read more on this story, courtesy of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, please click here: Welcome to SAM

COUNTY APPROVES LIDO PROJECT

For years the city of Sarasota and the county have butted heads on whether a portion of Ted Sperling Park at South Lido Key could be used as a staging area for a shoreline renourishment project that’s set to begin next year. Now the county has granted the city permission to use a nearly 700-foot segment of the county-owned property at the southern tip of Lido – potentially saving the city about $1 million in project costs. But that 4-1 decision did not come without strong reservation that the city’s project to renourish Lido with sand from Big Pass could negatively affect south Lido or Siesta Key. For more on this story, please click here: Lido Project Approval

PLANT A TREE, GET UP TO $500

Do you want to plant a tree? Root a mature one in Sarasota and the city will give you up to $500. Through a community-driven program, city officials are hoping this initiative will help restore Sarasota’s urban canopy. The program focuses on planting mature canopy and understory trees with a minimum 2-inch caliper. Planting is limited to or within 10 feet of the right of way (that’s an area that includes the street, sidewalk, alley, median, curb and the gutter). Residents will own the tree and are required to water, prune and invest $100. Once the planting is verified by the city staff, Sarasota will reimburse the resident up to $500. The initial phase of the program includes 50 trees on a first-come, first-served basis. Please follow the jump for more on this story: Plant A Tree, Get Cash

DEALS & PROFITS COOL FOR FLIPPERS

Home flippers are swinging fewer deals and bagging smaller profits in Southwest Florida. In the Sarasota-Manatee region, 4.6% of home and condo sales in the third quarter were considered flips – an arms-length sale for the second time within 12 months – according to a new report from real estate researcher ATTOM Data Solutions. Those 242 flips were down by 9% from last year’s July-September period and by 5% from the second quarter of the year. The flippers also made less money on their deals. The median gross profit on a third-quarter flip was $59,000, or $1,000 less than a year ago. After a unusually lively flipping market in the spring, home flips nation-wide dropped nearly 13% from the previous quarter and 6.8% over the year – the largest drops for both measures in five years. There’s more on this story here: Cooling For Flippers

LEGACY TRAIL CONSULTANT DELIVERS UPDATE

The design consultant for the Legacy Trail extension recently submitted plans to Sarasota County, giving Gulf Coast cyclists a closer look at what’s in store for future segments of the beloved 10.7 mile trail. The first segment will extend from Proctor Road to Bahia Vista Street with a trailhead at Webber Street. The second will stretch from the current northern terminus of the trail at Culverhouse Nature Park at Proctor Road with a trailhead at Ashton Road. The third segment will go from Bahia Vista Street to Ringling Boulevard with a trailhead at Pompano Street. Please click here for more information: Legacy Trail Expansion Update

BOBBY JONES SUBSIDY MET WITH SKEPTICISM

As Sarasota continues to subsidize the cash-strapped Bobby Jones Golf Cliub, it looks to the community for input on what to do with sections of the municipal course now earmarked for public park space. City commissioners recently approved a resolution that pumps a $230,000 subsidy from the city’s reserves so that the historic course could start the new fiscal year without being in the hole. That’s in addition to $650,000 given to the golf course to cover last year’s losses. That decision, however, was met with skepticism by commissioners and citizens, who expressed concerns over continuing to draw from the city’s deficit to sustain an institution that continues to operate in the red. Click here for more: Bobby Jones Subsidy

BANNER TURTLE SEASON

The rare sighting of two endangered sea turtle nests in April opened the floodgates of the 2019 nesting season by stirring up some turtle madness days before the season officially began. Sea turtle fever lasted the whole season (May 1 – Oct 31) on the 35 miles of Southwest Florida beaches monitored by Mote Marine Laboratory’s alliance of nearly 300 volunteers and about two dozen interns who would count four special leatherback nests, 182 greens, and a record-shattering 4,926 loggerheads. A critically endangered Kemp’s Ridley nest is awaiting confirmation. Turtle patrollers collected data on 1,878 monitored nests, and 74.3% had evidence of a hatch. There were 85,060 hatched shells found by trained volunteers, and Mote estimates that 233,000 hatchlings scurried to the sea from Sarasota County shores. There’s more here: Banner Turtle Season

NEW PERFORMANCE HALL CALLS FOR STILTS

Conceptual designs for the Sarasota Performing Arts Center call for a three-story single structure on stilts that can accommodate approximately 200 parking spaces underneath and could help to protect the proposed 145,000-square foot bayfront facility from rising sea levels. Meanwhile, after a year of back-and-forth with Sarasota County, city officials think they finally have the right formula to help finance the $300 million redevelopment of the bayfront project, known as The Bay, where the proposed performing arts hall will be located. Click on the link for more: Performance Hall on Stilts

NEW SEA LEVEL FORECASTS PAINT DIRE PICTURE

New scientific projections released recently predict that ocean levels will rise even faster than previously forecast over the next four decades in low-lying southeastern Florida, which is already prone to frequent flooding even on sunny days. Compared with estimates made in 2015, the new prediction is for about 5 inches in additional sea level rise under a moderate outlook by 2060. About 3 inches of rising seas have already occurred between 1992 and 2019 in the region, according to a new study. It’s become common at high tides – especially the most robust king tides – to flood parks, yards and structures as the water continues to creep upward. Please click here for more on this story: New Sea Level Forecast

A PLAN TO SAVE THE CORAL REEFS

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, along with seven partners, unveiled a $97 million plan recently to restore coral on seven reefs in the Florida Keys. The hope is to eventually restore 3 million square feet of coral reefs, or roughly the size of 52 football fields. The NOAA plan, carried out in three phases over 15 years, would increase coral coverage on those seven reefs from the current 2% to what is hoped to be 25% by 2035. Historically, Florida Keys’ healthy reefs had about 30 to 40% coverage. If you’d like to learn more, then click here: Coral Reef Plan