Commission discusses Newtown priorities

The city estimates the Newtown Community Redevelopment Area will generate about $12.7 million in dedicated tax revenue over the next 25 years, money earmarked to address blight within the boundaries of the north Sarasota district.

On Tuesday, city commissioners debated their preferred strategies for spending that money and the outcomes they hoped the Newtown CRA would help facilitate. The city is in the process of updating the Newtown CRA redevelopment plan, the guiding document for the tax-increment financing district.

City staff said its goal is to encourage redevelopment and economic growth within the CRA while addressing the needs of residents and preserving community history in the majority-Black district.

The Newtown CRA is an 838-acre district bound by Myrtle Street, U.S. 41, 17th Street and the Seminole Gulf Railway line. The TIF mechanism captures increases in property tax revenue within the district’s boundaries and turns that money into the CRA’s budget.

Because the city established the CRA in 2006, just before a major economic downturn, the district failed to generate revenue for more than a decade. The city reset the base year for property tax calculations in 2019, at which point staff set out to update a redevelopment plan originally adopted more than a decade earlier.

In 2019, the city held a series of public meetings and shared an online survey to collect feedback from residents within the district’s boundaries.

Staff extracted some community priorities from the results: Respondents said they wanted the CRA to attract new businesses and pursue transportation improvements.

The survey said residents wanted more lighting and tree canopies in Newtown, and they wanted more entertainment options, retail businesses and neighborhood services. The public wanted the city to follow-through on incomplete high-profile projects, such as the reopening of Miss Susie’s restaurant and the redevelopment of the Marian Anderson Place site.

Staff used that input to help guide the proposed updates to the redevelopment plan. The latest draft of the document, 100 pages in total, features sections on economic development, branding and marketing, housing, land use, quality of life, infrastructure and transportation.

Recommendations include initiatives to attract new businesses, the creation of a Newtown arts district, consideration of height and density increases on Dr. Martin Luther King Way, expansion of the Legacy Trail through the CRA and partnerships to build workforce housing.

Tuesday’s workshop was an opportunity for commissioners to share their thoughts on the document staff put together. The board was largely supportive of the work staff did, but individual commissioners offered some input and suggestions for revisions to the priorities identified in the redevelopment plan.

Kyle Battie, who represents the district in which the Newtown CRA sits, said he that he would like to see a greater emphasis placed on assisting existing residents with homeownership, a strategy to prevent displacement ahead of planned improvements in the area.

Battie also said the city needed to be conscientious about maximizing the value of the money the CRA generates. In the 2021 budget year, the CRA was expected to generate $137,059 in tax revenue and $136,828 in a loan payment from the Downtown Improvement District.

Unlike the former downtown CRA, the Newtown CRA does not collect any tax revenue from Sarasota County. Battie said it was essential to continue engaging with residents and businesses even after adopting a redevelopment plan to ensure projects and services were aligned with the needs of stakeholders.

“It’s imperative that every dollar spent coming out of this CRA produces something,” Battie said.

Battie also said he believed the city should prioritize the completion of the Miss Susie’s Kitchen project, a stalled public-private restaurant project intended to serve as a workforce training center and a nod to a Newtown business that closed in the 1970s.

Commissioners Liz Alpert and Hagen Brody shared similar thoughts on the Miss Susie’s project.

“I think that’s another problem we have with north Sarasota, starting things and not finishing them,” Brody said. “Miss Susie’s is clearly a visible representation of that.”

The redevelopment plan, already approved by the Newtown CRA Advisory Board and Planning Board, will advance to the City Commission for final adoption after staff makes revisions based on Tuesday’s workshop.

Although the plan is focused on one segment of the city, Battie said he believed all neighborhoods in the city benefit when one neighborhood is made stronger.

“That’s the goal here: to make Newtown better,” Battie said. “It’s going to take all of us, all hands on deck.”