How about brick streets, arcades mid-block along Main Street, wider sidewalks, refurbished store fronts that follow the historic underlay, a pedestrian friendly connecting portal from Main Street to the Bayfront, a circulating “people mover” to not only get people connected throughout the downtown and adjacent areas, but also to other public transportation including maybe a water taxi to the keys, and many other creative ideas?

The DSCA along with 5 other organizations (Downtown Improvement District, City of Sarasota, Sarasota County, Downtown Sarasota Alliance, and the Chamber of Commerce) sponsored one of the most important civic workshops of the year AND of the 181 registrants, 93 identified themselves as Residents for a weekend of work and creativity. Thanks to all who turned out and for all your great and valuable ideas to improve the downtown and its historic district.

The next step, according to the SemCon Planning Committee is to gather the many ideas, sketches, drawings, and notes from the conference into a coherent document to present to the Downtown Improvement District for their consideration at a public meeting to be announced in the near future. Stay tuned to the DSCA Website for more information.

October 11th, 2010