How about brick streets, arcades mid-block along Main Street, wider sidewalks, refurbished store fronts that follow the historic underlay, a pedestrian friendly connecting portal from Main Street to the Bayfront, a circulating “people mover” to not only get people connected throughout the downtown and adjacent areas, but also to other public transportation including maybe a water taxi to the keys, and many other creative ideas?

The DSCA along with 5 other organizations (Downtown Improvement District, City of Sarasota, Sarasota County, Downtown Sarasota Alliance, and the Chamber of Commerce) sponsored one of the most important civic workshops of the year AND of the 181 registrants, 93 identified themselves as Residents for a weekend of work and creativity. Thanks to all who turned out and for all your great and valuable ideas to improve the downtown and its historic district.

The next step, according to the SemCon Planning Committee is to gather the many ideas, sketches, drawings, and notes from the conference into a coherent document to present to the Downtown Improvement District for their consideration at a public meeting to be announced in the near future. Stay tuned to the DSCA Website for more information.

October 11th, 2010

It seems as though when the traffic around town lessens, the activities of our City Commission and of the various City Departments increases.

Watching Downtown Improve right before our eyes! So much of downtown is undergoing renovation and upgrades that if you blink you might just miss something. 

Of course, as all of you know by now, improvements to our Downtown area are proceeding and will continue in an active phase right up to mid-December. Construction of the Palm Avenue Garage is under way after many false starts, and I must tell you, we were all extremely pleased to see the coming together of so many of the residents of our Downtown Associations in promoting ideas and concepts that will improve the downtown experience for you and our visitors.

New water, sewer, electrical and other infrastructure upgrades, new sidewalks that in some places are being expanded and landscaped to improve pedestrian accessibility and accommodate the needs of the merchants without whom we wouldn’t have a chance to have a vibrant downtown; and a general cleanup and refurbishing of sidewalks, irrigation systems and the like will make you proud.

The DSCA, through its greenspace subcommittee (Carol Reynolds and Barbara Campo) and its Board, maintained an active dialogue with other organizations such as the Downtown Improvement District (DID), the Downtown Sarasota Alliance (DSA), Chamber of Commerce and others to present the Sarasota City Commission with recommendations and advice that went through a thorough public vetting process representing our member associations and their residents’ best common interests. The DSCA volunteers spent hundreds of hours over the past year making sure our members’ points of view were taken seriously. What a bargain for dues that total only $100 a year for full membership! 

August 23rd, 2010