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Sarasota

Sarasota Basics

   Once a haven for sedentary retirees, Sarasota has come into its own, now boasting a youthful, eclectic culture and palpable entrepreneurial spirit. The number of young retirees and not-yet-retired Baby Boomers moving to the area is growing at break-neck speed, with construction, retailers, and the arts community hustling to keep pace. The Sarasota Young Professionals Group, a business and social networking club for professionals under age 40, grew from zero to more than 900 members in 2003, its first year of operations. Sarasota is getting younger and more active every day.  Now more than ever, Sarasota is known primarily for three things: the arts, lifestyle and wealth.  State and regional marketing materials call Sarasota “The Cultural Coast” for good reason – Sarasota is home to world-class cultural amenities similar to those only found in much larger cities. The city was once the winter home of the Ringling Brothers’ circus; in an effort to achieve mainstream credibility among the world’s rich and famous, multi-millionaire John Ringling and his wife brought the most impressive cultural elements to town. At Ca d’Zan, the Ringlings’ mansion on Sarasota Bay, some of the wealthiest industrialists and most famous celebrities feted all winter in the early 1900s, assisted by the liquor and cigars brought by boat from Cuba, undaunted by Prohibition.

   The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, the state art museum of Florida on the Ringling grounds adjacent to the fully refurbished Ca d’Zan, is most notably home to an extraordinary collection of works by baroque masters, including several priceless Rubens, but the museum regularly hosts renowned modernist and contemporary exhibits as well. Down the street, you’ll find the Ringling School of Art and Design, one of the leading art colleges in the country. Sarasota’s opera, symphony, ballet, art galleries, and numerous professional theatre companies attract top talent and performances from around the world. The area’s dedication to public art is hard to miss, with provocative sculptures lining the bay front and marking the entrance to nearly every office building.

   The arts are a major contributing factor to the extraordinary lifestyle in Sarasota. But ask almost any new resident of Sarasota why they moved to town – chances are, you’ll hear, “one look at the Bay, and I was hooked.” Indeed, the Gulf of Mexico water and beaches of Sarasota are something to see. On a boat ride down the Intercoastal Waterway, you’re guaranteed to see groups of wild dolphins and you might even catch a glimpse of a shy manatee. Each beach in Sarasota is just a little different, from the texture of the sand – fine white powder to soft golden granules – to the size and shape of the shoreline, reflecting the diversity of Sarasota itself.  The casual, laid-back, little beach town feel even permeates the business community in Sarasota, where everyone knows everyone else and devotion to community betterment seems to transcend individual desires for greed and power. Sarasota is held together by small, independently owned businesses; business owners work hard to protect and preserve that tradition, giving an extraordinary amount time and support to community and not-for-profit ventures. Because the majority of Sarasotans are not life-long residents, the community welcomes newcomers with open arms, happily introducing them to networking, social and leadership opportunities.

   The lifestyle and the arts … frankly… they are the direct result of money. Sarasota attracts the affluent … but not the kind of flashy, splashy, obnoxious affluent. No, the residents of Sarasota – among the most well-educated and wealthy (often more from unearned income sources than earned) in Florida – are more humble and understated. They come to Sarasota because their expensive cars and designer clothes go unnoticed in this town where such cars and clothes are rather common. They blend in here, quietly funneling cash into the local culture. To them, Sarasota still feels “real.”  All that wealth, increasing in number and volume every day, creates endless entrepreneurial opportunities – in fact, the primary reason many people initially come to Sarasota is for the opportunity. Sarasota is not home to many large corporations offering six-figure salaries, but creative entrepreneurs enjoy tremendous success in Sarasota, often exceeding that income level in a short period of time. It’s a good thing, too, because a generous income is required to enjoy Sarasota’s many amenities.

Real Estate

   The artsy, casual affluence of Sarasota trickles over into the local real estate market as well. The average home price in Sarasota County in the summer of 2004 was about $240,000 and rising, as large pockets of luxury homes replace the ranch homes and trailer parks of yesteryear.  Sarasota’s public school system, on the whole, far outperforms most others in the state of Florida. The system includes several truly outstanding schools (some noted below), including the Pine View School for the Gifted, a public school exclusively for 2nd through 12th graders who qualify as intellectually gifted. There are families who move to Sarasota County just for the chance to send their child to Pine View.  Property taxes in Sarasota County are about average for Florida, but impact fees do affect the price of new housing. Insurance rates are higher closer to shore, with separate Hurricane/ flood insurance required in certain areas.

The Downtown Area: Alive and Eclectic

   Downtown Sarasota is enjoying a major revitalization. Construction of a Whole Foods grocery store in the heart of downtown will be complete in the late fall of 2004. That project, along with a swanky Ritz-Carlton built in 2002, has focused developers on downtown; numerous developers purchased chunks of pricey downtown property on which they are now building high-end condominium and mixed-use projects. More than a dozen of these projects are underway, ominously marked by the construction cranes stretching high above the Sarasota skyline.  The many new condo projects going up in downtown Sarasota will bring a critical mass of people and upscale retail and specialty stores to the quite charming downtown area. But none of them are cheap – the least expensive of the new condos starts in the $300,000s (for less than 1,500 square feet of space, but with lots of amenities), with prices rising into the millions. In more than one of these projects, the cheapest unit starts at over $1 million. The good news is that you don’t have to buy a new condo to live near the increasingly hip downtown area.

   Laurel Park/Towles Court/Gillespie Park: These three neighborhoods contain those quaint cottages built decades ago that home improvement fans love to renovate and paint fun colors. Towles Court started as an artist colony, and the unique, charming homes reflect that history. Towles Court is still the site of many wonderful art galleries and coffee shops, but most of the homes have appreciated beyond the budget of a typical starving artist. Towles Court and Laurel Park, both on the south side of downtown, blend together almost imperceptibly, with multi-family units sporadically sprinkled in among the renovated homes. Most single-family homes in the area are still under $1 million, many well under that price.  Gillespie Park, on the north side of downtown, is still in the middle of its gentrification and renovation period, so bargains are still available here. But you have to act fast. This is a hot area, and homes don’t last long on the market – sometimes they don’t even make it to the market at all. With many fixer-uppers priced under or around $300,000, the best bet for an interested buyer is to procure an agent who specializes in Gillespie Park who will know the moment something is about to become available -- then pounce.

   West of the Trail:This phrase refers quite literally to the neighborhoods immediate south of downtown on the west side of the Tamiami Trail, the main corridor that connected Tampa to Miami before I-75 and other highways were constructed. The houses here are older homes that have been either renovated and expanded, or torn down and replaced with something larger and more modern. The westernmost homes in this area have bay frontage. Sarasota Memorial Hospital, an award-winning public hospital, takes up a huge chunk of space in this area, making it a choice neighborhood for doctors. Adjacent to the hospital is Hillview Street and the Southside retail and restaurant district, a very popular and posh shopping and eating district within easy walking distance of many West of the Trail homes.  West of the Trail is considered far more desirable and exclusive than the Laurel Park area, and the home prices reflect that. The least expensive homes West of the Trail might be in the mid $300,000s, and most in that range will be smaller bungalows in need of TLC. If you really want to impress someone, get a house on one of the “flower streets,” a series of streets named after flowers – Rose, Hibiscus, Clematis, etc. One major selling point – the public elementary school that encompasses West of the Trail, Southside Elementary, is outstanding, easily one of the best in the county.

   Now, a caveat – some Realtors label their listings “west of the trail,” hoping to capitalize on the panache of that claim, but the actual house is literally on the east side of Tamiami Trail. It may be just across the street from West of the Trail, and it may still feed into Southside Elementary, but in Sarasota – that’s absolutely not West of the Trail. There truly is a difference, and a visual comparison of the homes and neighborhoods on the east side versus those on the west side makes the difference clear. On the other hand, the East of the Trail area, including the Southgate neighborhood, is the next-to-get-hot neighborhood, with a great location, wonderful public school and many homes in the low $200,000s, this is likely to become a great investment.

The Keys: Tropical Luxury

   Several beautiful Keys, or barrier islands, line Sarasota’s coast, with the Gulf of Mexico to the west of the Keys and the Intercoastal Waterway or a bay to their east. This is prime real estate, about as pricey as it gets in the area. Waterfront properties will brag about the “deep water,” which can accompany larger boats, or “sailboat water,” meaning no low, immobile bridges (as opposed to one of the many drawbridges in the area) block the path from dock to open ocean. The Keys are accessed by only one or two bridges, which can become frustrating parking lots after busy island events. But residents of the Keys will tell you that a little traffic is an easy sacrifice for a true island getaway. There are several keys, but the larger ones are Longboat Key, Siesta Key and Casey Key.
   Longboat Key: To many, Longboat Key is the flagship Key of the Sarasota area. This long, skinny barrier island was one of the first inhabited Keys and has become synonymous with extreme wealth. Giant homes and luxe condominiums line either side of Gulf of Mexico Drive, the single main street that traverses the length of the Key, accompanied on one side by the most popular, well-kept biking and pedestrian trail around. Longboat Key is the home of the Colony Beach and Tennis Resort, consistently ranked as one of the top tennis resorts in the world. The Longboat Key Club, an exclusive golf club and residential area, and a smattering of the most exquisite restaurants in the area are dot the Key.
   Longboat Key is anchored on the South at St. Armand’s Circle, a tony shopping and eating district surrounded by some impressive high-end homes, including some of the most expensive recent sales in Sarasota – more than one home in the area sold for over $10 million in 2004. This southern half of Longboat Key is in Sarasota County; the northern half, in Manatee County, bridges into the Manatee County beach district, which offers a decidedly more casual, typical beach feel than posh Longboat. Check out the northernmost Longboat Key neighborhood, famous for the dozens of quite brazen wild peacocks that roam and roost in the neighborhood year-round. This might be one of the few Longboat areas left with houses or condos priced under $500,000, and even that would be a rare fixer-upper.
   Siesta Key: Just south of Downtown lies Siesta Key, with a dramatically different character than Longboat Key. Siesta Key Village offers the beach community feel many vacationers seek. Open-air restaurants and music fill the air year-round for residents and visitors whose standard attire centers around a bathing suit and flip-flops. Siesta Key Beach has been ranked as one of the best beaches in America, due in part to its many well-kept public amenities and amazing sand – a wide swath of white sand that looks and feels almost like baby powder. It’s actually crushed quartz, so it never gets hot; locals say Siesta Key is a natural vortex of some kind that pulls the quartz there and no where else. Down the Key, Turtle Beach is a narrow beach covered with shells and, in the Spring, sea turtle nests, well-marked and watched by turtle fanatics.
   Property on Siesta Key used to be reasonably priced, but those days are disappearing. Siesta Key has been discovered by everyone, driving prices ever higher. You’re nearly as likely to see an old beach house being razed and replaced by an impressive new wonder as you are to see a sunburned tourist on Siesta Key. The single thing Siesta Key may have in common with Longboat Key is home prices – it’s far easier to find a million dollar home on Siesta Key than anything under $500,000.
   Casey Key: South of Siesta Key, Casey Key is a quiet residential island marked by heavy, lush tropical foliage, winding roads and some of the most exclusive homes in the area, tucked safely away from the ogling of tourists and Sunday drivers. You won’t find condos, hotels or restaurants on Casey Key; residents, including reclusive celebrities like author Stephen King, prize the privacy and solitude afforded them here. You’re unlikely to find a home priced under $1.2 million here, and that probably only buys an old bungalow.

South Sarasota County: Family Friendly

   Developers have only pioneered into the large expanses of land in the southern half of Sarasota County in the last couple of decades. As a result, some major suburban developments have spawned, along with tremendous and continuing growth. This is where you will find most of Sarasota’s families, its middle class, the chain and “big box” stores, and most of the new schools and other new government infrastructure elements.
   Palmer Ranch: Palmer Ranch is a giant swath of ranch land, about 10 to 15 miles south of downtown Sarasota, with cows still grazing in random fields throughout to afford the landowning family agriculture tax benefits. But most of the ranch has now been divided up into about a dozen neighborhoods and developments, representing literally all styles, from multi-family housing developments to massive golf club estate homes, and price ranges, from the high $100,000s to well over $1 million. Interior roads, most of which are lined with sidewalks and bike lanes, connect the neighborhoods. About half of Palmer Ranch feeds into Ashton Elementary School, one of the best elementary schools in the state, and all of it feeds into Sarasota Middle School and Riverview High School – both top schools.
   Residents of Palmer Ranch have every possible retail amenity less than a mile from their home, with more grocery stores, car dealers and professional offices popping up around Palmer Ranch every day. Palmer Ranch is a quick six miles inland from Siesta Key Beach. This is also the location of the Potter Park YMCA – a YMCA unlike any you’ve ever seen, with state-of-the-art gym equipment, indoor and outdoor pools, a child-friendly water park, tennis courts, a running trail, playgrounds, a climbing wall, an Alpine climbing tower, and the YMCA Sharks swim team, a nationally-competitive swim team that churns out college scholarship recipients and Olympic hopefuls with regularity.
   Venice: Venice is slowly shedding its reputation as “Heaven’s waiting room,” though the average age of a Venice resident is still over 60. In a word, the Island of Venice is quaint – from the beautiful old palm tree-lined streets framing a lovely walkable downtown featuring one of the oldest and most successful community theaters in the country, to the newly restored Train Depot. The beaches in Venice are world-famous for their huge deposits of fossilized sharks teeth. At Caspersen Beach, dubbed “the shark tooth capital of the world,” nearly every handful of sand you scoop has at least one shark’s tooth in it -- it’s quite the tourist attraction, and a very nice beach all around.
   Developers have been invading the areas east and south of the downtown Venice, with neighborhoods in an array of price points appearing. It’s increasingly difficult to find a bargain among the old downtown homes, as the location and the charm of a renovated old Venice home is finding new appeal. You can still find plenty of homes well under $1 million in Venice, with the less expensive of those farther from the downtown area. Venice schools are generally quite good. Venice has many long-term, established residents, and many newcomers feel that Venice is not as welcoming to them as other parts of Sarasota County.
   North Port: This is the newest burgeoning community in Sarasota County; it has exploded in just the last couple of years, almost uncontrollably. The city is just now beginning to pause and take a breath and double-check its planning strategy. The reason for the growth – lots of available land. North Port has the overall most affordable housing inventory available in Sarasota County – the average income of a North Port resident is about $41,000. You can still find buildable lots in North Port for around $20,000 (compared to hundreds of thousands of dollars in the northern parts of Sarasota) and plenty of homes priced in the $100,000s and some even lower. North Port is not a Gulf-front city, which explains its comparative affordability.
   Because of its massive growth, almost all of the new schools being built in Sarasota County are being built in North Port. North Port High School just opened a couple of years ago; it was built with an impressive, state-of-the-art auditorium and theater. Several new elementary schools are slated for construction in this area.
   North Port’s current drawback is lack of commercial, office and retail establishments. The people who live in North Port generally don’t work there because there is no place for them to work; they commute north to Sarasota or south to Port Charlotte. This, however, is changing pretty quickly.
   Osprey/ Nokomis/Englewood: The unincorporated cities in the southern half of Sarasota County are worth a brief mention, because they are all still full of opportunities. Osprey, immediately south of Palmer Ranch and site of the Pine View School for the Gifted, is on the front edge of development, with a new Wal-Mart Supercenter and large surrounding neighborhoods just beginning construction. Nokomis, immediately south of Osprey, will soon feel the trickle-down development from Osprey and Palmer Ranch. Englewood, the southernmost city in Sarasota County, has been making a valiant effort to establish its own quaint retail district. These are all coastal towns where waterfront property may be more accessible and somewhat more affordable than in the Keys or the more established cities.

Manatee County: A Growing Force

   Manatee County lies directly adjacent to the north border of Sarasota County – it links Sarasota to the Tampa Bay cities. The history between Sarasota and Manatee County has thus far prevented the two from becoming the powerful marketing and economic development powerhouse they could be, frustrating the economic development professionals in both regions. Manatee County, centered around the county seat of Bradenton, is far less transient than Sarasota County. Families live in Bradenton and its surrounding areas for many generations; the oldest will share with you their memories of the “sleepy Southern town” that was Bradenton only a few decades ago. Many Manatee County residents see Sarasotans as superficial and flashy; plenty of Sarasotans, who derogatorily speak of “Bradentucky,” think of Manatee residents as unrefined “hicks” and “rednecks.” Both perceptions are clearly false, but sometimes the perception prevents harmonious, unified efforts.
   Though Manatee County has its fair share of wealth, and plenty of waterfront property, it is sorely lacking in the cultural amenities that so lavishly bless Sarasota. You will not find nearly as generous an offering of artistic venues and extraordinary dining opportunities in Manatee County as you will find in Sarasota County. But you will find plenty of very affordable homes in this area, as well as decent schools and a close community feel. Manatee County is the location of St. Stephens Episcopal School, a private school where many prominent residents in both Sarasota and Manatee Counties send their children. The beach communities in Manatee County, such as Anna Maria Island and Holmes Beach, are even more casual and laid-back than the Sarasota beach areas, and they look more like typical beach towns. Palmetto, the Manatee County city north of the Manatee River is experiencing a significant surge at the moment, with high-end homes and retail amenities built and more underway.
   Lakewood Ranch: Really the jewel of Manatee County, and the biggest threat to the continuing growth and success of Sarasota County, is Lakewood Ranch, a massive master planned community east of I-75. Most of Lakewood Ranch lies in Manatee County, though a wide strip of it reaches into Sarasota County. The Lakewood Ranch portion is far more developed, primarily because Sarasota County government fiercely resisted east-of-the-interstate residential development for so long that Lakewood Ranch developers gave up on Sarasota and left it behind.
   Lakewood Ranch includes several neighborhoods with hundreds of various style homes in a range of price points – starting from around the $200,000s to several million dollars. More homes in more neighborhoods with different signatures, including an all-adult community, are on the drawing board. But Lakewood Ranch has become such an impressive force because of its amenities. Within Lakewood Ranch itself are all of the recreational, educational, religious and retail amenities its residents could want. It contains several great elementary schools and its own public high school, a YMCA, the Sarasota Polo Fields, Keiser College, grocery stores, an upscale retail shopping area (still under construction) and hotels. Lakewood Ranch has developed its Sarasota County portion as a corporate/ office park, attracting quite a few companies to locate offices and even relocate their home office to Lakewood Ranch.
   In the next three to five years, Lakewood Ranch and its immediate surrounding area will have a multi-plex movie theatre, a professional ice hockey and sports arena, and at least three new world-class, high-end golf course communities, including one members-only course being built by the Ritz-Carlton. Plans for the Sarasota County portion also, finally, include construction of walkable mixed-use “villages.” Though Lakewood Ranch is not on the beach, it has become a dominating factor in real estate in the Sarasota area.

Maps of Sarasota

Written by Kendall Jones exclusively for CoastParadise.com.

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