Sarasota Military Academy's downtown campus listed for sale

A downtown Sarasota property home to the Sarasota Military Academy for 25 years — and appraised at more than $17 million — is being listed for sale. 

Sarasota Military Academy Inc., which operates a nonprofit military charter school, is selling its nearly 5-acre site at 801 N. Orange Ave. and consolidating its two campuses into one off Fruitville Road in the next few years. 

Officials with the The DeLieto Team at MSC Commercial, which is representing the property, are marketing the building as a "rare large-scale redevelopment opportunity." Marketing materials show that using Florida’s Live Local Act to redevelop the site would allow for up to an 18-story tower and increased density on the site.

“Our goal is to present the opportunity for a prospective buyer to redevelop the site based on the Live Local Act, allowing for a mixed-use condominium and apartment complex,” Lee DeLieto Jr., senior commercial advisor and broker associate, says in an email.

While a list price has not been publicized, the Sarasota County property appraiser assessed the site for $17.11 million this year.

Sarasota Military Academy serves nearly 1,000 students in sixth through 12th grades. The downtown/Rosemary District high school campus is home to some 600 students, while its middle school is about 9 miles east, off Fruitville Road at 3101 Bethel Lane, near Lakewood Ranch.

One factor in deciding to sell the downtown property is economics, according to Sarasota Military Academy Board Chair Tom McElheny.

“The economies of scale will increase,” McElheny says. “Instead of having, for example, two security details and two maintenance details … there will be economies there.”

In addition, the downtown campus provided what he calls “distractions” due to its age. Sarasota Military Academy Inc. purchased the 4.86-acre Orange Avenue site for $2.37 million in 2005 from the Diocese of Venice, Sarasota County property records show. It was the “old St. Martha’s Elementary School,” McElheny says, with some buildings on the campus built in the 1950s.

“We've been spending a significant amount of money just keeping the 70-year-old buildings going,” McElheny says. “So, first of all, there's an economic advantage to consolidating on one campus. The prep school is 10 years old.” 

Sarasota Military Academy Inc. bought the 10.5-acre site on Bethel Lane in 2016 for more than $7.4 million, according to property records. It houses Sarasota Military Academy Prep, which serves nearly 400 students in sixth through eighth grades.

Future plans call for a new academic building and athletic center on the Bethel Lane campus, according to McElheny, who says the high school is expected to move there in 2028. 

Having one campus will enable Sarasota Military Academy to “return to our core roots as a high-quality military school,” McElheny says. “We are a military school, and we're going to move forward with that as our foundation, with an increased focus on improving our student achievement” as well as character and leadership development.

McElheny officially recommended to the academy’s board in November 2025 that it list the Orange Avenue property for sale, which he says was met with unanimous support.

“When rumor got out that I had made the recommendation to the board, I was approached individually by four different developers,” McElheny says.

The DeLieto Team at MSC Commercial officially listed the property today. In its marketing materials, the firm notes it is blocks from downtown and the waterfront.

The property in the Rosemary District is zoned downtown edge (DTE), which allows for 25 units per acre or up to 100 units per acre if 15% of the units are attainable, with mid-rise residential development permitted. 

“Florida’s Live Local Act provides additional tools for developers to maximize residential unit counts in qualifying urban locations, and this site’s downtown adjacency and DTE zoning position it as a strong candidate,” marketing materials say. “The site offers a clear path to multifamily or mixed-use redevelopment in a submarket that is rapidly transforming and under-supplied with quality residential product.”