DID moves to expand into Rosemary District

With the potential sale of George’s Top & Body Shop to a developer planning 295 apartments, the Rosemary District continues to blossom with new development. 

On Tuesday, the Downtown Improvement District took a definitive step toward harnessing the projected growth in the area north of downtown — which includes the 470-unit CitySide project and 228 rentals at Sarasota Flats — with a 4-1 vote approving a task force to explore expansion into the Rosemary District.

Despite concerns from DID board member Ron Soto about gathering more input from current DID members, the city will now decide whether to appoint an 11-member committee to survey the roughly 147 property owners in the Rosemary District. To move forward, the DID hopes to get a majority of commercial property owners on board. Property owners will be taxed at 2 mills like current DID property owners. 

The expansion would increase the DID’s budget by 70% to more than $580,000, according to estimates by DID Operations Manager John Moran. 

Though Soto said during a previous meeting that Rosemary could monopolize a majority of new infrastructure projects, DID Chairman Mark Kauffman said the new district could help fund the DID’s deficit over the next decade.

“I think having a mechanism to fund improvement projects in the Rosemary District and elsewhere is vitally important to a downtown,” said Downtown Economic Development Coordinator Norm Gollub.

The move could also be an alternative for bolstering infrastructure to the downtown Community Redevelopment Area, which is set to sunset in 2016.

“Should the CRA expire — and all indications are that it will — there has to be a way to fund improvements,” Gollub said.

According to estimates, Gollub said the next five years could bring between 1,600 to 2,500 new residents into Rosemary, which will be a boon to retail — further increasing property values. The latest proposal for development within the district is the tentatively named 7th Street Apartments, which will replace the longtime body shop at the intersection of Lemon Avenue and Boulevard of the Arts, and two other adjacent structures.

The developer, listed as the Charleston, S.C.-based Greystar, will include three courtyards and a dog park as part of the project, according to records filed with the city.

Gollub said with the influx of new residents and retail, an increased security presence will be a necessity the DID could provide. In a packet Moran has prepared to distribute to Rosemary properties, it specifically mentions the Sarasota Police Department’s Volunteer Ambassador program, which is a neighborhood watch program aimed at increasing police visibility.

“We need to solve the criminal activities that are taking place in front of our very eyes on the sidewalk,” said Ian Black, whose real estate firm has been based in the district for more than two decades.

Rebekah Mandeville-Gelvin, who opened Mandeville Beer Garden in March, brought up security and issues with homelessness as possible projects the DID could undertake, but pointed to the high-traffic intersection of Lemon Avenue and Fruitville Road as the most pressing need for an infrastructure facelift.

Mandeville-Gelvin said she would like to see the intersection become more pedestrian friendly to encourage the flow of foot traffic from downtown.

The DID has proposed a potential type of project that could be supported by an expanded DID that includes overhead lights stretching across Central Avenue south of its intersection with Fifth Street, enhanced paving and parallel parking, landscape updates and paved crosswalks.

“It’s so barren right now that the smallest things will make a big difference,” said DID board member Eileen Hamphsire.

Moran said he expects to have the proposal for a task force in front of the city commission in July, after which the committee will “bust its butt” to implement an expansion — if the plan has support from Rosemary property owners.

“It took us a year to get the DID,” Moran said, about the DID, which started in ’08. “Because we have interests voluntary generated by some commercial property owners, we may be able to move a little faster on this.”

But Soto remained skeptical about the lack of public input from current DID members, and Plaza at Five Points condo owner Ron Rayevich warned board members to be more cautious about how it recruits Rosemary into the DID. 

“I think this will be overturned at some point in court,” Rayevich said. 

However, DID board members Daniel Volz and Steve Seidensticker said that current members have had their chance to voice opposition to the proposal.

“I think that this task force is a gesture by our board saying that we aren’t just jumping to conclusions,” Volz said. “I trust the process.”

Moran said depending on the success of its efforts in Rosemary, the task force could possibly be extended to analyze adding bayfront properties or residential owners into the DID.

“We’re almost stewards of the city, because without a thriving downtown Sarasota doesn’t thrive,” Moran told board members following the decision. “You have more responsibility than I think is being assumed, and I would like to see us grab that responsibility and run with it.”