“I don’t give a damn if we have to start from scratch or whatever the deal is, this is our downtown… it is vehemently imperative that we get this right.” — Commissioner Kyle Battie
Downtown Sarasota is a city in tension with itself. Glass towers climb over a bayfront skyline while neighbors fight over noise ordinances and shrinking setbacks. A billion-dollar transformation is rising at The Bay, a new performing arts center is on the drawing board, and just up the interstate, the sprawling shops and restaurants of University Town Center keep siphoning away the crowds.
—The blueprint meant to guide all of it — to decide how tall the buildings rise, how the streets feel underfoot, and whether the heart of the city still belongs to the people who live there — is a quarter-century old. Everyone agrees it needs rewriting. Almost no one, it turns out, agrees on how.
—That fault line cracked wide open on May 18, when the City Commission voted unanimously to suspend its long-awaited downtown master plan update — including the procurement behind it — rather than award a $500,000 contract to the lone consulting firm left standing after two rounds of solicitation. The decision capped an afternoon of pointed public criticism from some of the region’s most prominent civic and business organizations, and from members of the very committee the city had assembled to guide the work.
—A plan a quarter-century in the making
—The push to refresh downtown Sarasota’s guiding document has been building for two years. Planning Director Steven Cover told commissioners the commission first directed staff to move forward with updating the downtown master plan in April 2024, and over the following months established a citizen ad hoc committee that eventually grew to 13 members. The current plan, Cover noted, dates back roughly a quarter-century; the city says about 85% of its recommendations have been implemented.
—Marty Hylton, president of Architecture Sarasota — the organization that helped catalyze the entire effort with a speaker series featuring international planning experts — described the stakes. The visiting experts, he said, consistently emphasized the need for “deep and meaningful public engagement,” “radical transparency throughout the planning process,” and an ambition for Sarasota to “become a national model for good planning.”
—The mission, and the money
—The goal, as staff framed it, was never to start from scratch but to update and build on the existing plan. Cover explained the distinction directly: the original downtown master plan was created from scratch for roughly $300,000, while the proposed $500,000 figure was for an update — “taking, working off the successes of the first plan and maybe some of the failures of the first plan and moving from there.”
—The financial terms were a recurring theme. Procurement Official Renee Hayes told commissioners a cost analysis had pegged the update at roughly $300,000 to $500,000, with the city budgeting at the higher end. The selected firm, MKSK, had initially submitted a price of $700,000 — $500,000 for an initial three-year period plus $100,000 for each of two one-year renewals — but through negotiation, Hayes said, staff brought the cost down to the $500,000 budget. Commissioner Liz Alpert pressed on whether the dollar figure had been too low to attract top-tier firms; Hayes maintained it was not low for the scope, and attorney Robert Eschenfelder, advising the commission, noted that no vendor had used the formal question period to argue the budget was inadequate.
—A procurement that produced one finalist
—The heart of the controversy was how the city ended up with a single option. Hayes walked the commission through an exhaustive timeline: a first solicitation issued in September 2025 drew seven proposals, but was canceled in November over a problem with how local-preference points were structured. The commission voted to waive local preference in January 2026, and a second solicitation went out — reaching, by the city’s count, more than 27,000 registered vendors through its procurement platform. That round drew only three proposals, and by the time of the April interviews, two had withdrawn, leaving only MKSK.
—Among the withdrawals was a pointed one. Renowned planner Andrés Duany’s firm, DPZ CoDesign, pulled out in late March, writing that its methodology and experience were “not congruent with the expectations of the envisioned planning process.” Mayor Debbie Trice zeroed in on the puzzle: “How did 27,000 only bring 3 bids?” Of 14 firms specifically flagged by consultants as good candidates, Hayes said, eight looked at the solicitation but only two ultimately submitted on both rounds.
—A chorus of opposition
—One after another, civic leaders urged the commission to stop and start over. Hylton’s Architecture Sarasota recommended the commission “not award the planning consultant contract to the sole remaining consultant” and reinitiate a process “built on the principles of transparency.” Heather Kasten, president and CEO of the Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce, representing more than 1,500 member businesses, said it was “time to hit the reset button,” warning that “our city deserves better than what is left on the table approach” and that the choice was “a generational decision.” Kelly Brown, speaking for the Coalition of City Neighborhood Associations and its 22,000-plus households, said a process “that yielded only a single consultant candidate raises a significant concern about competitiveness, transparency, and long-term outcomes.” Christine Robinson of the Argus Foundation was blunter still: “You should have choices and they should be tough choices amongst several firms that are the best in the country, but you don’t.”
—Perhaps the most striking testimony came from inside the tent. Erin DiFazio, a member of the ad hoc committee itself, told commissioners the process had “felt a bit like checking the box of community engagement” rather than a genuinely committee-driven effort. She said the committee had been left “largely in the dark,” with Sunshine Law restrictions cited as a barrier to their participation in the selection. Citing Duany’s withdrawal letter, she said the evaluation committee “appears to be seeking predetermined answers,” and warned that proceeding now “would be a waste of the taxpayers’ dollars.”
—The commission acts
—Vice Mayor Kathy Kelley Ohlrich moved to suspend all activity, including procurement, on the downtown master plan ad hoc committee until the city’s incoming manager could put the matter back on the agenda — a motion later amended, at Alpert’s request, to also allow the commission itself to revive it. “Clearly we have at least perception problem here,” Ohlrich said. “When that happens, you only have a window of time to make a course correction. If you don’t, your end product will be suspect and you will have wasted money. Now is the time to make the course correction.”
—Commissioner Kyle Battie, who seconded, was emphatic about getting it right: “I don’t give a damn if we have to start from scratch or whatever the deal is, this is our downtown… it is vehemently imperative that we get this right.” Both he and the mayor stressed the timing of a new city manager arriving within weeks as an opportunity rather than a setback.
—Importantly, the commission was careful not to disband the ad hoc committee, whose members had spent more than a year educating themselves on the issues. Commissioner Jen Ahearn-Koch sought explicit assurance the committee “would not be unseated,” thanking members for their investment of “time and energy.” Trice echoed the sentiment, saying she “would have voted against disbanding the ad hoc committee,” while gently acknowledging that any member whose “patience has worn thin” could step away without shame.
—On legal advice, the commission took no separate vote to formally reject the MKSK contract — Eschenfelder noted “you don’t need to pass a motion to not do a thing,” and that leaving the door ajar preserved options for the new manager to potentially renegotiate. Alpert was careful to absolve staff of wrongdoing: “It’s not what you did wrong. You did it like you thought you were supposed to do it.” The companion budget amendment that would have funded the contract was declared moot.
—What the future holds
—For now, the downtown master plan update is on ice. The path forward runs through Karie Friling, the incoming city manager, whom Trice suggested “probably knows more about this… than we will ever have” when it comes to working with planning consultants. The ad hoc committee remains intact, the existing scope of services and negotiated contract remain on the shelf as starting points, and the question of whether to relaunch a third solicitation — with what Hayes warned would need “substantial changes” — now awaits new leadership.
—The episode leaves Sarasota in a familiar spot: a process that several commissioners compared to the city’s first, failed city manager search, which ultimately yielded a stronger field on a second attempt. Whether a reset delivers the “bold and ambitious” planning effort civic leaders are demanding, or simply more delay for a plan already a generation old, will be among the first major tests for the city’s new manager.
