Rosemary District sets community goals

A planning initiative in the Rosemary District has identified dozens of ideas for improving the rapidly developing neighborhood.

By David Conway
| 6:00 a.m. November 2, 2017

Rosemary District property owner Howard Davis believes the neighborhood can effectively advocate for a broad slate of changes.

Sarasota
News

Last summer, amid a spike in development in the Rosemary District, Howard Davis began reaching out to area stakeholders to discuss the future of the rapidly growing neighborhood.

The conversations were informal, but he found that people were eager to talk. The city approved a density bonus for the Rosemary District in 2014, designed to spur building activity in a neighborhood in need of redevelopment.

That policy quickly bore fruit. By 2017, the city had approved more than 1,100 residential units in the neighborhood. There hadn’t, however, been a corresponding plan for how to manage that growth, which created uncertainty for those invested in the district.

Davis wanted to develop that plan — and move quickly. Those initial informal conversations morphed into the Rosemary District Grassroots Planning Initiative. It’s a communitywide effort to assess the needs and desires of the Rosemary District, both today and into the future.

There had been some previous dialogue about how to address problems the area was facing, such as a shortage of green space or a need for better connectivity to downtown. Still, a comprehensive big-picture perspective was lacking, and building was already underway.

“We didn’t start with nothing,” Davis said. “But we’re trying to accelerate a process — that might not have happened at all — but if it had happened, would have been a lot slower than what happened here.”

History lesson

As the Rosemary District planning group determined stakeholders wanted to celebrate the neighborhood’s history, a pair of Sarasota residents were already working on a way to do just that.

Vickie Oldham and Erin Zolner are planning a rededication ceremony for a historical marker in the Rosemary District. The neighborhood, formerly known as Overtown, was Sarasota’s first African-American community during a time when the city was segregated.

The county installed a marker at the corner of Central Avenue and Boulevard of the Arts commemorating the district’s history — but it was removed during construction of Rosemary Square, a mixed-use development.

Oldham, the leader of an ongoing project documenting the history of Newtown, was watching to see when the marker would be reinstalled.

“It’s not just any old marker,” Oldham said. “That is a memorial to say that African-Americans lived in Overtown, and when it was removed, it was as if a memorial honoring our existence and our contribution was removed.”

Zolner, a co-owner of Perq Coffee Bar, was searching for a way to acknowledge the Rosemary District’s past as she prepared to open a new café in the area.

“Everybody knows the coffee shops are the gentrifiers,” Zolner said. “It really hit me that the area we were in was changing so quickly — if we move in and don’t really honor the history of the place, it’ll be lost.”

Zolner heard she should get in touch with Oldham. The two connected in April, and have since worked together to organize a ceremony for the reinstallation of the marker next year. They’re also working on a brochure for a walking tour highlighting historically significant structures in the neighborhood, information that will be incorporated into the Newtown Alive mobile app.

When members of the Rosemary District planning group found out about Oldham and Zolner’s work, they were excited to learn people were already pursuing an identified priority. And Oldham and Zolner were excited to learn district leaders had begun to emphasize history during a period of significant change in the neighborhood.

“Before that, with all of the construction, it just seemed like everything new was being constructed without a remembrance of the past,” Oldham said. ‘That’s why it’s so important that they make that history a guiding principle. I’m thrilled about that.”

Over the past three weeks, those involved with the planning initiative have spoken at neighborhood meetings to outline the progress made so far. It includes a vision statement for the neighborhood, nine guiding principles, more than 20 goals and more than 80 recommendations for how to achieve those goals.

It’s a wide-reaching list of ideas, borne from a survey of Rosemary District stakeholders. To create more green space, the neighborhood could convert segments of existing parcels into parks. To foster a live, work, play dynamic, the district could identify space for outdoor events and performances.

Some recommendations are simple, such as the creation of a single Rosemary District logo. Others are more ambitious, including the creation of a nonprofit housing trust to develop affordable residential units and achieve a mix of housing.

There are aspects of the plan that recommend using the neighborhood as a place for experimentation and looser regulations, hoping to maintain a distinct identity for the neighborhood through eclectic architecture and art.

As Rosemary District stakeholders took in this information, questions arose about how the proposed changes will be implemented. Davis knows that not all of the recommendations, developed with planning consultant Kimley-Horn, will be viable. But he’s seen members of the community eager to take the lead on issues they’re passionate about.

He thinks that’s how the neighborhood will be able to effectively pursue change on many fronts. Cost, public energy and other factors will determine the rate at which individual ideas move forward. Facing a long list of challenges, Rosemary District leaders see a community eager to get started.

“That’s a good place to be,” Davis said. “When we started this, remember, there were none of these specifics. Now, we have a whole series of things that came up from the process we engaged in.”