Newsletter 105

NEWS FROM THE SUNCOAST

SARASOTA, MANATEE BEACHES WILL CLOSE

Sarasota and Manatee counties will close all public beaches out of an abundance of caution amid concerns about coronavirus, officials announced at a Thursday news conference held at Sarasota County Emergency Operations Center. Sarasota County will be closing its beaches starting at 6:00 am on Saturday March 21, while Manatee County opted to close all public beaches effective 6:00 am on Friday March 20. Lido Beach in the city of Sarasota will close along with the county-operated beaches, as will beaches in the city of Venice. While representatives from both counties said that they felt like residents were mostly adhering to guidelines to not exceed groups of 10 people in gatherings (that is contrary to what I’ve heard), they said that they were worried about an influx of people coming to the beaches while other beaches around the state are being closed. To read more on this story, courtesy of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, please click here: Beaches To Close

GROCERS SET ASIDE HOURS FOR SENIORS

Two of Florida’s major grocery stores have set aside specific shopping hours for elderly and at-risk customers because of the coronavirus. Southeastern Grocers, the parent company of Winn-Dixie, said on Thursday that it would immediately dedicate the 8-9 a.m. hour Monday through Friday for elderly and at-risk shoppers. Starting next week, shoppers ages 65 and over will have exclusive access to Publix stores on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings from 7-8 a.m., the supermarket chain said on Thursday. Sarasota-based Detwiler’s Farm Market has already begun offering the elderly and disabled exclusive shopper hours for 7-8 a.m. Monday through Saturday. For more on this story, please click here: Special Grocery Hours for Seniors

CANADIAN SNOWBIRDS FLYING HOME EARLY

With the U.S. announcing Wednesday that the Canadian border would be shutting down for nonessential travel and flights beginning to dwindle, Canadians who usually winter in the area through Easter have changed those plans. There was one out-going flight to Toronto at Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport on Thursday on Air Canada. There were two flights headed to Toronto, one to Montreal and a flight to Halifax on Air Canada from Tampa. Westjet, which had planned on canceling flights after Saturday, had instead extended flights through Wednesday night. Air Canada, the country’s largest airline, will suspend service to all but 13 of its 53 U.S. destinations starting April 1, the airline announced on Wednesday. Orlando and Fort Lauderdale will be the only airports served in Florida. Canadians comprise about 8% of annual visitors to Sarasota County, with 104,000 people visiting in 2019, according to Visit Sarasota. Please follow the jump for more on this story: Canadians Leaving Early

LOCAL RESTAURANTS NEED YOUR HELP

This is an editorial piece, written by local restauranteur Michael Klauber: Hundreds of thousands of people dine in restaurants all day across the Gulf Coast every day. Our region has an international reputation as a world-class dining destination. Our well-traveled residents have helped by supporting and nurturing our vibrant restaurant scene. Especially in a tourism-driven economy like ours, restaurants are considered "second responders" in time of disaster or crisis. Whether the crisis we are facing is a hurricane or a pandemic, restaurants are an important part of the support needed for communities to recover, as we are places to celebrate and share together in the human experience. Restaurant employees depend on income from tips and shifts, which they especially count on in peak season. Higher sales from March and April are what help local business owners and employees weather the slow summer months. Our local independent restaurants need your support now, more than ever. There’s more on this story here: Restaurants Need Your Help

HOME SALES STAY STRONG

Home sales remained strong in Southwest Florida to start 2020, maintaining the steady growth seen during most of last year. Buyers closed on 975 existing single-family homes in the Sarasota-Manatee region in January, a nearly 23% increase from one year earlier, according to data from the Florida Realtors trade group. However, home sales were weak in January 2019, as housing was impacted by rising mortgage rates, a rocky stock market and economic uncertainty. Still, the latest numbers continue the solid pace of last year, when local home sales got stronger and wound up 10% higher for all of 2019. Even condo sales, which were down by 5.5% last year, posted a 54% gain to 564 units in January. Please click here for more information: Home Sales

HOME STARTS BOOMING

New home construction remained strong in Southwest Florida last year, with the pace of home starts at their highest level since the housing bust. Builders broke ground on 6,908 local single-family homes in 2019, an annual gain of 11%, according to a new report by data supplier Metrostudy. Driven by retiree demand, that marked the highest annual starts rate for the Sarasota-Manatee-Charlotte counties region since late 2006. The local market continues to "bump along the top," said Metrostudy regional director David Cobb. Home starts rose 5.3% in. Sarasota, declined 3% in Manatee and surged 75% in Charlotte. Click here for more: Home Starts

NEW QUAY CONDO PROPOSED

Construction at the once-quiet Quay Sarasota continues to speed up. The Kolter Group has filed plans to build an 18-story, 150-unit condominium on the southeast corner of the bayfront tract, which would be the third project on the site. Kolter has a contract to buy a one-acre site from GreenPointe Communities of Jacksonville, which bought the Quay property in late 2014 and is developing a $1 billion "urban village" with buildings on nine separate blocks of land. Kolter is already under construction with the 73-unit Ritz-Carlton Residences on a 1.9-acre waterfront site. It is next to the Ritz-Carlton hotel and will be part of a combined campus. Occupancy is slated for late this year. There’s more here: New Quay Condo

TOPS ON TRIPADVISOR

Siesta Key Beach has been ranked as the top beach in the United States. Tripadvisor ranked the Sarasota beach first in its 2020 list of the Top 25 beaches in the country. The site also ranked Siesta Beach as the #11 beach in the world. "Pristine beach that never seems to end. Photographer’s dream. A place in the sun that warrants returning again and again," reads Tripadvisor’s listing. Florida’s St. Pete Beach was #2, Pensacola Beach was #4, Clearwater Beach was #5, Hollywood Beach was #7, Panama City Beach was #8, Saint Augustine Beach was #11 and Santa Rosa Beach was #13 on Tripadvisor’s Top 25 list. Click on the link for more: Siesta Beach is #1

TWEAKING THE VISION FOR SARASOTA’S FUTURE

After more than 2,000 survey responses, a multitude of forums and more than a year of work, the region’s long-range planners are almost ready to greenlight their "big picture" vision for the region’s transportation future. By 2045, the future will be a better Sarasota and Manatee, which emphasizes economic diversity, environmental health and moving people, not machines, they say. But before the Sarasota-Manatee Metropolitan Planning Organization sets that vision into motion, the organization that engages in long-range transportation planning for the bi-county area needs to make some additional tweaks. Please click here for more on this story: Future Vision

VISIONS FOR A CLEANER BAY

Unless the flow of nitrogen into Sarasota Bay is reduced and remediated, the water quality there may someday mirror that of the Indian River Lagoon on the East Coast of Florida – where the growth of healthy seagrass has been stymied by algae blooms. Steve Snau, principle of Progressive Water Resources, said that over the past 20 years, the amount of total nitrogen in Sarasota Bay has doubled, according to the Sarasota County Water Atlas. "It’s still not a high number, but this is reason to be concerned that we start reversing that trend," Snau said recently. If you’d like to learn more, then click here: Visions for a Cleaner Bay

CETACEAN SECRETS

If the deep and abiding mysteries of "dolphin language" are embedded in codes that can be cracked, odds are high that our neighbors in Sarasota Bay will show the way. Equipped with large complex brains that actually outweigh adult human gray matter by some 300 grams, dolphins have long been mythologized by pop culture as humans of the sea. But the astonishing capacity of theme-park captives to obey reward-based commands have consumed the careers of mavericks and dreamers in futile pursuit of establishing two-way communication. However, thanks to a combination of "citizen science," upgrades in computer technology, and the persistent curiosity of a researcher who began blazing this trail as a Riverview High student when Nixon was president, the cetacean world is being pierced like never before. There’s more on this story here: Dolphin Research