Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/235968
Sarasota News Leader January 3, 2014 project involving about 40 rental units and 36,000 square feet of retail, office and art gallery space. A second phase would add a multi-level parking structure and either a boutique cinema or a theater for live performances. Getting to agreement takes about two hours, as the development team presents its plans and then defends them. The team had responded to a city "Invitation to Negotiate" over six contiguous city-owned lots along the Boulevard of the Arts. In one of his first acts in office, City Manager Tom Barwin proposed that the property — the site of a former community garden — be offered as a "catalyst project" to kick-start development of the Rosemary District. Only one team rose to the occasion, a congregation of locals including Dr. Mark Kauffman and his daughter, Mindy; architect Jonathan Parks, who has his own firm; builder Michael Beaumier; and planner Joel Freedman. In the next step, city representatives will hammer out additional details of the project in collaboration with the Rosemary Square team. Page 125 much as $1 million cheaper than the siphon system, and it requires vastly less maintenance. He presents his findings at a public meeting on Dec. 18, concluding Phase One of McKim & Creed's contract with the city. The Downtown Sarasota Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) Extension Study Committee members have agreed to recommend an extension of the CRA past 2016 and to propose that a new governing structure be created for it, comprising two city commissioners, two county commissioners and three city citizens selected by the City Commission. It further has agreed to give the county an undetermined percentage of the CRA funding, a "skim" on the proposed $500 million projected to be raised over the next 30 years of the CRA's life. On Dec. 18, members decline to prepare a written report of recommendations to the City and County commissions — which appointed them. They ask Deputy City Manager Marlon Brown — who has been a city liaison at the meetings — to prepare a PowerPoint slide show to After $1.1 million worth of study, the official present to the two commissions in January. recommendations are in on how to proceed with Lift Station 87 on the northern side of Hudson Bayou at Osprey Avenue. Project The Celery Fields, which was historically Manager Robert Garland with the engineering agricultural land until Sarasota County purand design firm of McKim & Creed is rec- chased it in 1995, is getting two new additions ommending another microtunnel under the that will improve it for residents and tourists bayou, running about 7 feet deeper than the alike. depth called for in the previous plan. For the In the first project, the county is constructpast three months, Garland has conducted ing permanent restrooms and parking spaces. a rigorous examination of the underground That work began Nov. 13, with completion strata where a pipe carrying one-third of the estimated for spring 2014. Adjacent to the city's sewage must lie. His back-up idea was restrooms and parking area, the Sarasota a horseshoe-shaped siphon. The tunnel is as Audubon chapter will be building a $1 million