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Will Sarasota be the next Greenville, S.C.?
That's the hope, in some respects, that local economic development officials and city leaders have with Norman Gollub, the newly hired downtown Sarasota economic development coordinator. Gollub, who starts his new post in early 2013, was the economic development manager for the upstate South Carolina city, with a population of about 60,000, from 1998 to 2004. He secured more than $825,000 for improvement projects, according to his resume, and he led efforts to haul in $50 million in private redevelopment funds.
That resume is the backbone of the optimism. For instance, Steve Queior, president and CEO of the Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce, says Gollub's Greenville experience stood out among the 60 or so other applicants. Gollub scored high marks for several other jobs, Queior told the Sarasota Observer, sister paper of the Business Review, but the one possibly most impressive item of experience was Greenville, “which is a very progressive community,” Queior says.
Queior says he doesn't expect Gollub to “walk on water,” but expectations are still great. Indeed, the crux of the position, paid for by the chamber, the city of Sarasota and the Downtown Improvement District, is to fend off competition from other nearby retail centers. That goes from St. Armands Circle to The Mall at University Town Center in north Sarasota, scheduled to open in 2014.
Gollub, a principal at an economic development and urban design firm in Portland, Ore., after he left Greenville, will certainly have his challenges in Sarasota. For starters, Downtown Improvement District Chairman Ernie Ritz points out few funds are available to Gollub, past conducting studies.
There is also the overhanging dysfunction that often marks Sarasota city government. Examples include parking issues that have taken years to resolve; developers and entrepreneurs who cite non-friendly, if not downright hostile-to-business city employees; and a public records law and computer fraud scandal that ultimately led to the city manager's resignation.
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