84 SARASOTA SCENE | FEBRUARY 2018
on the town
you’re focused on and your experience in
and of itself. My lifelong goal is to be is
as she is – a better listener.
How are you most like her?
Well, we both like to cook, but I grew
up cooking alongside her. I don’t claim
to have her skill sets. I think we both
are detail-oriented. It’s about the entire
experience — from the big picture to
the smallest detail. We both believe
in running things on our core values,
which are very important, and you never
sacrifice those even if it’s a really tough
business decision.
Tell us about where you envision the
Sarasota Bayfront 20:20 project going.
When you look at downtown since the
early 2000s, then the pause, followed by
the restart and the last three years, people
are amazed at how quickly we evolved
out of nothing happening to everything
happening. We’re seeing our downtown
being built out from apartments to
projects like Vue Sarasota Bayfront, which
begins to finish off the other half of our
downtown — everything west of 41. And
if you look at that at as our “gold coast”
of high-end condominiums, the Bayfront
project gives us the opportunity to give
that side some degree of integration.
There’s never been a thought of what
could be from the corner of Gulfstream
Avenue to as far north as we can make
that happen. But with the Quay property
in play, it became the impetus to talk
about all the possibilities that can be
incorporated into this 42 acres that
benefits everyone. If we as community
aren’t ready to talk about this publiclyowned
land, then we’re going to miss
this important opportunity. That means
talking about pedestrian bike paths,
what happens on this side versus that
side, roundabouts, etc. We’ve got to be
on our A-game.
I give a lot of credit to Virginia Haley
(president of Visit Sarasota County) for
letting the board run with that topic.
What would be more important for
tourism than this centerpiece of our
arts and culture? I think everyone
realized that there had been a failed
effort to develop the future of the
Bayfront in the early 2000s. Nothing
had really changed, and that only meant
infrastructure was older, the need to
focus on this had only become more
acute. So we confronted the issue
of how to bring forth this big, hairy,
complicated 42-acre project with 12
leaseholders in a community that is also
very concerned about change?
We decided that this project’s first
discussion couldn’t be “this is what is
going to be built” otherwise all you’re
going to do is argue about it. It is like
trees on Main Street. I like Oak trees.
You like Palm trees. And you have this
Oak vs. Palm tree debate and miss
the right discussion, and don’t see the
forest for the trees. So that’s how we
decided that it had to be a community
discussion and it became Bayfront
20:20, a community effort of “let’s
build a consensus of organizations
with members who can vote and
represent a constituency,” not just
one individual’s voice, and let’s make
sure that with a consensus of over a
couple thousand people at this point,
we create a bill of rights for any
development.
Those were the guiding principles and
the hard work that came long before
the SBPO (Sarasota Bayfront Planning
Organization); principles adopted by
both the SPBO and the city into the
ethos of what has become a much
more technical process of “how
do we plan the thing.” And that’s
where we are today. That planning
effort, and the city’s wisdom not to
make it a political process, allows
for SBPO, a nonprofit, to deliver
back to the community, and for the
city’s approval of an implementable
plan. We’re at that stage now. We
are blessed to have so many talented
people involved in a real team effort.
I trust the team that is in play now.
You could not have a better leader
than A.G. Lafley (Sarasota resident
and former chairman, president and
CEO of Procter & Gamble), with
the complexities and experience
in his business career, and who
has completed a similar process
and project in Cincinnati. We are
fortunate that he’s volunteering his
time and talent. Everybody on the
team is talented and comes with a
unique perspective, yet all of them
realize they must honor what the
community created.
How important is Bayfront 20:20 in
defining Sarasota’s future?
I think everybody knows to do this
right it has to be something that serves
us well for the next 50 to 75 years.
Bayfront 20:20 Project