Sarasota's City Commission will decide Monday, Aug. 17, whether to let Benderson Development add three stories to the former county administration building at 1660 Ringling Blvd. and whether to accept $3.5 million in state money to flood-proof the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall.
The Benderson vote requires a supermajority to pass. The Van Wezel grant costs taxpayers nothing.
Benderson seeks rezoning to add three stories, Class A office space
Benderson is asking the commission to approve a Comprehensive Plan Amendment changing the future land-use map designation of 1 acre at 1660 Ringling Blvd. from Urban Edge to Downtown Core. A second, quasi-judicial hearing would then rezone that acre from Downtown Edge to Downtown Core.
If both pass, the East Manatee County-based developer could expand the building's footprint, raise it to 10 stories and convert it into Class A office space with street-level retail and restaurants. Benderson bought the 2.88-acre property from Sarasota County in 2021 for $25 million.
The building has been nonconforming since the city rewrote its zoning code in 2005, which grandfathered the county's prior use but limited exterior changes. A zoning line currently runs through the structure itself, splitting it between Downtown Core along Ringling Boulevard and Downtown Edge adjacent to the Laurel Park neighborhood.
The Sarasota Planning Board unanimously endorsed both requests at its July 8 meeting. Because the amendment is site-specific and small-scale, it does not require state review in Tallahassee, but it does need at least four of five commissioners to vote yes. The subsequent rezone needs only a simple majority.
Todd Mathes, Benderson's director of real estate investment, told the Planning Board on July 8 that the project addresses a shrinking downtown office inventory depleted by years of converting commercial buildings into condo towers. "If we're going to go from six digits to seven digits just to design and engineer the building to tens of millions of dollars of reinvestment in the existing building, it needs to make sense," Mathes said, according to Business Observer coverage of that meeting.
Benderson held a community charrette in October 2023 and met with Laurel Park residents in December 2025 to present refined site concepts. No formal neighborhood position on the Aug. 17 vote has been published.
$3.5 million state grant would fund flood mitigation at Van Wezel
Also on the consent agenda is a budget amendment establishing revenue and expense lines in the Van Wezel Capital Fund for $3.5 million in state grant money. The city signed the grant agreement with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection on June 15, according to the meeting agenda preview published by Your Observer.
No city match is required. The funds will cover pre-construction and construction work for flood mitigation improvements at the Van Wezel, which sits within the 53-acre Bay Park just 15 feet from the bay in a flood zone.
The scope of those improvements has not been publicly detailed beyond the dollar figure and the grant agreement date.
Public can attend Aug. 17 meeting in person or online
The Aug. 17 commission meeting is open to the public. Residents may attend or watch online at sarasotafl.gov. The Benderson hearings are the top items on what city staff have described as a relatively light agenda.
