The barrier islands of Sarasota are approaching what many locals view as a defining crossroads. On Monday, April 13, the City of Sarasota will host its second and final “visioning workshop” to chart the post-hurricane future of St. Armands Circle. Yet, beneath the municipal framework of community roundtables and independent facilitators lies a deep-seated anxiety among residents: a fear that the city is quietly paving the way for sweeping zoning changes and the “hotelization” of the historic district.
—A Process Born in Controversy
—For many neighborhood advocates, the origins of the current visioning effort have cast a long shadow of suspicion. The public workshops were organized only after a scheduled August 2025 closed-door meeting between a handful of commercial property owners and Sarasota Director of Planning Steve Cover was brought to light.
Emails uncovered through public records requests revealed that participants were referring to that private gathering as “The Future of St. Armands.” Following a swift public outcry, the city canceled the private meeting and pivoted to the current public workshop format. Still, trust remains low. To resident leaders, the process resembles a Trojan horse designed to manufacture consent for density increases that have historically been fiercely opposed.
—The Catalyst: Hurricanes and the ‘50 Percent Rule’
—The renewed push for commercial expansion is deeply entangled with the aftermath of the devastating 2024 hurricane season. Storm surges from Hurricanes Helene and Milton inundated the area, triggering strict FEMA “50% Rule” guidelines. These federal regulations mandate that extensively damaged properties must be elevated to modern flood codes.
Faced with the exorbitant costs of elevating their buildings, developers are looking upward to make their investments financially viable. Most notably, the team seeking to rebuild the Shore restaurant at 24 and 28 N. Boulevard of the Presidents is pushing to add density, which could include controversial third-floor boutique hotel units or short-term rentals.
However, municipal zoning is rarely isolated. If the city yields to developers on density or height to revitalize one property, those allowances would legally apply to the rest of the Circle, potentially opening the door to widespread commercial buildup.
—A Renaissance on the Street, A Blight on the Corner
—What may be working against those pushing for hotels and rezoning is the empirical reality on the street. The Circle is currently vibrant, buzzing, and full of life. In fact, some businesses are reporting massive increases in commercial activity, buoyed by the recent opening of the St. Regis hotel on Longboat Key, a reprieve from storms last summer, and perfect weather this past season.
Almost every evening, the Circle is replete with enthusiastic diners—throngs of visitors enjoying outdoor cafés, while every quadrant fills with musicians and shoppers. Locals describe a complete renaissance for the historic district, with one glaring exception: the distressed corner where the developers seeking new zoning entitlements have left their building in a state of disrepair, making little to no cosmetic effort to spruce things up following the hurricanes.
—A Resounding ‘No’: Sticky Notes and a Clear Directive
—At the initial February 26 session, the community delivered a unified message that sharply diverged from the proposals of developers. Roughly 150 stakeholders gathered at the Mote Marine Keating Education Center, where outgoing Interim Sarasota City Manager David Bullock introduced Dr. David Brain, an independent facilitator and sociologist.
Dr. Brain asked attendees to envision what St. Armands should look like in the year 2046, utilizing sticky notes and voting stickers to gauge consensus. The results overwhelmingly favored preserving the Circle’s century-old tradition: a quaint village-center feel characterized by small boutique shops, charming residential streets, and a quiet traffic flow.
Rather than increased density, residents and business owners alike demanded infrastructural triage. High-priority requests included fixing historically failure-prone stormwater pumps, improving flood-prone evacuation routes to Lido Beach and Longboat Key, and undergrounding vulnerable overhead utility lines. The concept of “hotel houses” and high-density lodging was firmly rejected by the attendees.
—The Specter of Past Proposals
—This is not the first time development interests have sought to reshape the Circle. In 2021 and 2022, an effort to authorize hotel use and increase commercial height limits was unanimously rejected by the City Commission, and a separate plan to build a hotel on the Fillmore Parking Lot also collapsed.
Now, residents worry that what developers failed to achieve through direct proposals is being repackaged under the guise of post-storm resilience.
“No one knows quite what to expect with the upcoming second visioning session,” Chris Goglia, President of the St. Armands Residents Association, noted in a recent bulletin to residents. “The more cynical among us expect city planning staff to ignore the feedback they got in the first session, and instead present proposed zoning changes that would allow larger buildings and hotel usage—what developers have been seeking for the past five years. In which case this would all be one big tax-payer funded dog and pony show.”
Whether the upcoming workshop will reflect the community’s demands for preservation and infrastructure, or pivot toward the density developers are seeking, remains to be seen. But for the residents of St. Armands, the future of their neighborhood hangs in the balance.
—Meeting Details and Public Comment
• What: St. Armands Visioning Workshop II
• When: Monday, April 13, 2026, from 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM (Attendees are advised to arrive 15 minutes early)
• Where: Mote Marine Keating Marine Education Center (the elevated building on City Island), 1599 Ken Thompson Pkwy, Sarasota, FL
• Parking: Limited parking is available under the building. Additional parking can be found near the Save Our Seabirds / Mote Marine parking lot.
• Registration: Encouraged for headcount purposes. Residents can register via Eventbrite by searching “St. Armands Visioning Workshop.”
—Make Your Voice Heard:
—If you are unable to attend the meeting but wish to have your stance on the zoning and development of St. Armands Circle placed on the record, residents are encouraged to email Sarasota City Mayor Debbie Trice at: debbie.trice@sarasotafl.gov
Images of a recent Thursday Evening on St. Armands Circle
