If not Wal-Mart -- what?

This is a pivotal week for one of the city’s biggest assets that was never treated like one: the old Ringling Shopping Center. The Sarasota City Council will decide whether or not to go forward with an appeal on the decision to allow Wal-Mart to build a super center on the shopping center site, which is now vacant.

At first it seemed like Wal-Mart was a shoo-in---a dead shopping center razed for another shopping center. But zoning codes are tricky things. Wal-Mart and the Planning Board that approved the action will need to defend several points related to store footprint, “department store” status and whether it is compatible.

Wal-Mart is well-known for both super-low prices and a super-large legal department. There are likely dozens of lawsuits around the country where Wal-Mart tried to argue they are a department store to fit into zoning in some places, and argued they are not in others, depending on the code language. We don't know how they will argue the compatibility issue. "Compatibility" is a funny word and in Sarasota, used often as a form of syntax: subject-verb-compatibility. While it’s pretty clear living next to a slaughterhouse is not compatible, there are lots of people who would be fine living next to a higher-density, mixed-use project, and lots of people who say it’s not their cup of tea. We understand the importance of the word compatibility, but it's too often abused to argue for no change, or stretched to mean anything.

If the commission rules that an appeal will go forward, Wal-Mart will likely come back with one of two things: more evidence they fit, or a request for a variance. They can do that and it happens all the time.

But here’s the thing---while the future of the site remains in the balance, the community never did a great job outlining what any future would look like. Sarasota spends a lot of time articulating what it does NOT want and too little (if any) time saying what aspirations for a workable, wonderful place would be.

In our view, this is because the city relies on two levels of planning---the site level code and the large-scale comprehensive plan---when there should be three. Other cities have figured out that there also needs to be middle-scale neighborhood planning that bridges the broad comp plan language and the minutiae of code. The shopping center site was at one time going to have this middle-level planning and design guides. Sure, these planning guidelines are not as forceful as zoning codes, but they help define the terms we face now---such as "compatible."  They also provide graphics, like the one above, which is worth a thousand words.

There are many TWIS writers, readers and advertisers who live along this eastern edge of downtown, but all of us are interested and have a stake. The fact is, there are few places in Southwest Florida with the “bone structure” to support walkability, biking and circulators in a downtown. It is important that this site is done well---not just for the neighborhood, but for all of Sarasota. The region is plagued by traffic because we dumb down plans, buildings and infrastructure to the point where everyone has to drive. A one-story, traffic-generating, pedestrian-repelling store on a great last site in downtown is not only incompatible with the neighborhood, but for us all.

The Herald-Tribune is arguing for a Wal-Mart, but in our view it’s not one of two things: a vacant lot or a Wal-Mart. The real question is, “If not Walmart, what?” The “what” could be really great projects that add vitality to a dead center, that link the neighborhood with downtown and provide the in-town housing so desperately needed. The commissioners are voting on code, but in reality they are voting on “what could be” on a site that didn't seem important---until Wal-Mart showed up.