Jesse Biter shares his downtown Sarasota vision at Lakewood Ranch
LAKEWOOD RANCH – Entrepreneur Jesse Biter took his vision for a more vibrant and affordable downtown Sarasota to this master-planned, city-in-the-making.
His Thursday breakfast speech went over well, even considering the receptive crowd — about 130 members of the Lakewood Ranch Business Alliance, most of whom depend at least in part on the continued success of the 33,000-acre planned community.
Biter, who sold a $2.5-million-a-month automotive sales software system to Auto Trader Group in 2010, lives a long way from Lakewood Ranch, in a downtown condominium tower. He works in the city’s core, too, in a four-story former bank building he renovated in 2012, now known as the HuB Building.
He readily admits that much of his world is anchored in five city blocks.
That real estate aside, Biter’s other passion — besides the auto supply business Dealers United he has started — is to draw more young professionals downtown and make Sarasota more of a year-round community.