City Hall fountain and courtyard to be fenced

Whether a courtyard area on the southwest corner of Sarasota City Hall constitutes a public park, and as such should be surrounded by a fence, was the subject of a 30-minute discussion during the Feb. 18 City Commission meeting.

Pulled from the consent agenda by Commissioner Jen Ahearn-Koch was an authorization to execute a contract to upgrade the area, which includes a damaged fountain, at a cost of $625,518. Hurricane Milton damaged the fountain when a massive live oak fell across it and the courtyard area.

For good measure, the bid included a fence around the area, which Ahearn-Koch took as contradictory to maintaining public space open to public use. 

“My concern is that it's a public area,” she said. “It looks like a park, it acts like a park. People treat it sometimes like a park. In fact, I'd like to see more people use that area.”

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The area has been well used, said Deputy City Manager Patrick Robinson, those uses often requiring a response by the Sarasota Police Department. It has served as an overnight shelter by the homeless and the fountain, as viewed through his adjacent office window, as a bathtub. That and years of vandalism, commissioners were told, led to the proposal to fence in the area as part of the renovation, secured by a gate to be unlocked during City Hall business hours.

“I can tell you that, from the police department standpoint, we've responded to a number of calls for service in reference to defecation, sleeping, crimes that are committed in that area,” Robinson said. “There was a point in time where we were having someone who was shoving feces through the mail slot in that back door that goes into the hallway. The design of the building is not in keeping with our current security needs.”

It’s that very design built in 1966, Ahearn-Koch countered, that necessitates the courtyard to be open and accessible to all. 

“The design of the building — the Sarasota School of Architecture — and this whole campus was to blend in with nature and to be accessible to the entire public,” she said. “I think the fence sends the wrong message.”

Ahearn-Koch was largely alone in her assessment of the value of the courtyard as a public park, as evidenced by the 4-1 vote to approve the contract including the fence. Residents have used sparingly the space not looking for a place to bathe or bed down for the night. And even if it were considered a park, Mayor Liz Alpert reasoned, the city should treat it like any other park, locking facilities when they close for the night. 

Commissioner Kyle Battie said if any part of the City Hall campus looks and functions as a park, it is the open space on the southeast corner of the property at Orange Avenue and First Street, where large shade trees form a canopy over a green lawn punctuated by a smattering of public art pieces.

“I never looked at that area as a public space. I just see it as sitting outside of the city manager’s and deputy city manager's office, and nobody really uses it aside from the homeless,” Battie said. “The area is so obscure it's not like ‘Let's go hang out at the park at City Hall at the fountain.’ Nobody says that.”

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The location of the fence will be several feet below the top level of the elevated space, reducing its visible impact from both the street and at the patio. The only furniture currently there are a couple of concrete tables and seating, installed to eliminate after-hours damage and vandalism. Securing the location would allow for more comfortable outdoor furniture and functional use by staff as outdoor meeting or work space.

In opposing the motion to approve the contract to include the fence, Ahearn-Koch reinforced her position.

“I think the approach of doing all of the renovations except the fence and then seeing if we could solve the issues with lighting and with other of our best practices, and saving the $30,000 on the fence, was perhaps wiser approach to this issue,” she said.