- January 2, 2025
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Following delays resulting from unexpected permitting requirements associated with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Sarasota County is set to begin redevelopment of the 17th Street Regional Park in spring of 2025.
Sarasota County Parks, Recreation & Natural Resources Director Nicole Rissler provided that update during a virtual meeting on Dec. 11 while unveiling the final plans for the nearly 200-acre site. The first phase — the athletic fields portion of the site — is expected to be completed in fall 2026.
Building the first phase will come at a cost of $65 million. The second phase toward the west abutting the city-owned Bobby Jones Golf Club and Nature Park and county-owned Circus Hammock nature preserve is neither funded nor scheduled at this time. The popular dog park on that portion of the site will remain and will be enhanced in as part of future phases, Rissler told the online audience.
The athletic complex at the park is fully designed and funded and will feature three new adult softball fields with the supporting amenities such as restrooms, concessions, dugouts and more, at the entrance off 17th Street. South of the adult fields is and an eight-field youth softball complex for Miss Sarasota Softball and other league uses designed to host large tournaments.
There is even a championship field oriented toward the northeast for optimum sunlight positioning with an outfield berm for spectator seating. The fields are divided into two quads, each with a center plaza for pedestrian movement wide enough to accommodate portable restroom facilities for large events and areas for food trucks.
“This will be unique in the Southeast United States as they will feature the 220-foot outfield fence lines, which college and pro softball went to,” Rissler said of all eight fields.
The original layout of the park positioned adult softball fields in their current location in the southwest corner of the site and scheduled them in the second phase.
“The adult softball complex was supposed to be part of a future phase of the athletic complex, and in 2023 the Board of County Commissioners requested that staff look at the ability to bring additional funding into the project to make sure that the adult softball complex was able to be complete with the Phase 1,” Rissler said.
On the east side of the first phase are several multi-use fields that can be configured for soccer, lacrosse, football and other uses. An area on the north end of those fields will remain open space as further assessment of community needs and additional funding are considered. The multi-use fields will be artificial turf.
“For those of you who have kids who play or you play, you'll know the benefits will be more play on those fields with less rest, and the ability to play very quickly after our afternoon rains because of the drainage,” Rissler said. “Right now, when we have afternoon rain, most of the time practices are canceled because the fields are too wet to play on.”
The youth softball fields and the potential for drawing tournaments, though, stand out as the featured attraction, each quad with its own batting cage and other dedicated features.
“We really worked diligently in the year-and-a-half of planning and design with many of our youth softball participants and partners on what was really needed in terms of warm-up space to make this a premier destination in youth softball,” Rissler said.
Rissler showed renderings of the community park side of the property — the unfunded second phase — which because it is not designed will undergo extensive community involvement in the planning.
Conceptually it includes a dog park facelift, a restroom facility, passive open space, and access to the Circus Hammock. The entire park will include a trail system connecting the Bobby Jones Nature Park trail to a future trail into Nathan Benderson Park. To the south, the future trail link the existing Circus Trail to the Legacy Trail crossing at Beneva Road across Fruitville Road, providing a trail network stretching from Venice to the University Town Center area.
