First peek of major downtown Sarasota redevelopment

SARASOTA — Developers have unveiled the renderings for a long-anticipated redevelopment in downtown Sarasota.

The renderings are for One Main Plaza, a high-end development replacing the 259,000-square-foot Main Plaza at the eastern gateway to downtown. The images show a mixed-use project across from the Sarasota City Center that takes up half a block in the heart of the commercial district and features sidewalks packed with shoppers taking in the shops and restaurants that line Main Street and Links Avenue.

While renderings are, by nature, portraits of a bright future, the One Main drawings show an ambitious project likely to bring a new energy and vibe to downtown Sarasota.  

The project will include two 10-story towers with 418 luxury apartments, 55,000 square feet of retail on the ground floor and about 1,200 parking spaces. According to the plans, about 376 feet of One Main will face Main Street where the sidewalk will be widened to 20 feet. About 630 feet of storefront will face Links Avenue. The development will also have frontage on Fruitville Road.

The new development, which does not have an a listed anticipated completion date, will sit alongside Regal Cinemas’ Hollywood 11 theater, which has a lease through 2029.

The renderings are part of a marketing package from Robins & Associates, One Main’s broker. The materials show that retail spaces between 1,500 square feet and 22,000 square feet will be available with lease rates of between $35 and $45 per year per square foot.

The marketing materials call One Main a luxury mixed-use project and touts that it’s within five miles of 168,130 people with an average household income of $88,719.

The developer, Belpointe REIT Inc. of Greenwich, Connecticut, began construction on One Main in October 2020.

The private equity company was formed in 2019 to develop properties in federally designated Opportunity Zones. It acquired 8.6 acres of the roughly 10-acre Main Plaza site in December 2019 — its first acquisition since its creation and initial public offering earlier that year — for $20 million.

Main Plaza dates to 1985, when another Sarasota investment group led by developer Mark Kauffman and attorney David Band revamped the site and brought in new office and retail tenants.

Main Plaza, though, struggled recently to keep tenants, with several restaurants, including Applebee’s, Ker’s Wing House and a YMCA branch closing.