Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/235968
Sarasota News Leader January 3, 2014 within 60 days of the deal. For its part, Laffer Associates promises to "provide a supply-side economic overview on the costs and benefits of New Urbanism/Smart Growth development." The contract is worth $85,000, plus another $5,000 set aside for travel and costs. Main Street in downtown Sarasota has been undergoing a facelift. Crews are wrapping up three different segments of work that added stretches of wider brick sidewalks along the middle and lower portions of Main Street. The total project cost of $1.9 million was paid for by the Downtown Improvement District. In one phase, workers expanded the brick sidewalk at the busier pedestrian stretches in front of the Gator Club, Pastry Art and C'est La Page 91 Vie on Main Street. That phase, from Lemon Avenue to Orange Avenue, is complete. The wider sidewalk sections — or bulbouts — are designed to encompass additional outdoor café seating while making downtown more walkable. As crews constructed the bulbouts, lampposts also were repainted; brighter light bulbs also are in the works. The largest construction segment, currently under way, will replace diagonal parking spaces on the north side of lower Main Street — from Gulfstream Avenue to Five Points Park — with parallel spaces, which will free up more room for sidewalk expansion. The sidewalk in that area will gain eight feet. The third segment of work will bring enhancements to the intersection of Main Street and Palm Avenue, one of the busiest and most visible Downtown construction has transformed the landscape, including providing wider sidewalks. Photo by Norman Schimmel