Sarasota Livin'

How about a 80 feet wide by 180 long elevated park like platform over top of US 41 at Main St... yes joining downtown to the bayfront...

I would love to have a spot to watch the fireworks or boat parade from up there...

The City Commission will be discussing this "wild idea" on July 5th It is being proposed by "Mobility Now" a group that seems to be lead by Gil Waters and Jack West two of the real movers and shakers of Sarasota.

Now if we could just reclaim some of the bayfront land wasted on surface parking lots ....

From the City Commission Agenda Request:

Architect Jack West describes his Sky Plaza

The proposed SKY PLAZA is a bridge over the Bay Front Drive and Main Street. It is also a 80 x 180 plaza 20 high, supported by four intersecting stainless steel arches 90 high with connecting vertical steel cables in tension attached to the periphery of the plaza thus obviating the need for interior columns. The escalator are protected by vaulted glass sky lights and the brick elevator shafts are faced with glass. The plaza deck is brick.

The primary need is for a safe and convenient method for people to move to and from downtown to the Bay Front but the SKY PLAZA provides much more, including:
1. Pedestrian access to the Bay Front fiom downtown along Main Street via escalators and elevators. People of all sorts including the handicapped and parents with baby carriages can pass over this busy intersection both safely and pleasantly.

2. The 80 x 180 plaza, elevated 20, functions as safe route above the intersection connecting escalators and elevators but it offers a great deal more: It is itself a destination providing magnificent views over the Bay, the Island Park and downtown.

3. The 90 high stainless steel arches over the Main Street-Bay Front Drive intersection becomes a gateway to Sarasota and dramatic symbol representing the City.

The SKY PLAZA idea goes back to 1959.

In 1959, at the urging of Gilbert Waters, a downtown planning committee was formed consisting of Jack West, A.I.A., John Crowell, A.I.A., and Elizabeth Waters, ALA.

The downtown redevelopment plan which they produced became the template for nearly all of the subsequent downtown planning. The implementation of several of the key elements of that original plan include:
1) The traffic loop system around the urban core.
2) An island park in the Bay.

Now in 2006 their vision of a bridge to the Island Park over the Bay Front Drive has taken form in the proposed SKY PLMA, a project sponsored by Gilbert Waters and designed by Jack West, ALA. Structural engineer: Brian Stirling, P.E.