SARASOTA – Sarasota’s main redevelopment agency faces elimination next year, and its leaders have begun sketching out a final budget.
The Downtown Sarasota Community Redevelopment Agency seeded downtown and Newtown neighborhood projects with more than $95 million over the past three decades, according to a financial update on Thursday. Among them were the Palm Avenue parking garage, Five Points Park and the Whole Foods on 1st Street.
In what may be its final year, the CRA plans to spend another $1.7 million on improvements to Fruitville Road, $645,000 on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Way and $50,000 for a study of a potential water taxi service to the barrier islands, among other projects. The CRA must earmark all of the money before the CRA expires.