County staff issues advertisement on March 13
On March 13, the Sarasota County Procurement staff issued a Request for Professional Services for “the planning, designing, permitting and construction bid support” for the Legacy Trail pedestrian overpass of Tuttle Avenue, The Sarasota News Leader has learned.
The bids are scheduled to be opened at 2:30 p.m. on April 20, the related Procurement webpage says.
This is the third Legacy Trail pedestrian overpass for which the county recently has sought such assistance, as The Sarasota News Leader has reported. In December 2025, staff began advertising for bids for the same type of services for the overpasses of Beneva Road and Bahia Vista Street in Sarasota.
Last year, the Florida Department of Transportation completed Legacy Trail overpasses of Bee Ridge and Clark roads.
In late January 2024, as the News Leader also has reported, the Sarasota County Commission voted unanimously to approve the design of the Tuttle Avenue overpass and a county Capital Improvement Project budget amendment for the funding at a total of $1,232,188.
A county memo included in the agenda packet for that meeting noted that $990,000 of the above amount would come in the form of a grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). North County Park Impact Fees would cover the remainder of the design expense, the memo added.
The staff memo also said, “[T]his [Tuttle Avenue overpass] project will continue to enhance the safety of a highly used multi-use trail by separating bicyclists and pedestrians from vehicles crossing this intersection.”
Further, the memo noted, county staff would work on the necessary documents needed to solicit bids for the design process.
In the interim, county staff dealt with the effects of three major storms in 2024 — Tropical Storm Debby in early August, Hurricane Helene in late September and Hurricane Milton in October 2024.
During the County Commission’s July 1, 2025 workshop on the 2026 fiscal year budget — which went into effect on Oct. 1, 2025 — Nicole Rissler, then director of the Parks, Recreation and Natural Resources Department — reported that the Legacy Trail overpasses for Bahia Vista Street, Beneva Road and Tuttle Avenue were all in the design phase.
The Scope of Services section of the Tuttle Avenue project bid package explains that the firm selected to undertake the work “shall provide engineering design services for a pedestrian overpass at the intersection of the Legacy Trail Extension (LTE) and Tuttle Avenue. The bridge width and approaches shall be designed to connect with the existing LTE and be consistent with the typical sections at that location. The bridge is to be located within the existing boundaries of County-owned land.”
The document adds, “The design services include, but are not limited to, utility improvements and utility adjustments, drainage improvements, structural walls, safety design, resurfacing, lighting, landscape and hardscape design, signs and signals, temporary traffic control, permitting services and any other necessary improvements.”
In a county staff response to a question from one interested company, the News Leader found the following answer about the cost of construction: “That will be determined during the design of the project.”
The overpasses have been characterized as a major safety feature of The Legacy Trail, especially in regard to heavily traveled roads.
The Florida Department of Transportation reports that, in 2024, the average daily traffic count for South Tuttle Avenue — which The Legacy Trail crosses — was 24,500.
The nonprofit Friends of the Legacy Trail records the monthly and annual usage of the biking/pedestrian pathway, which runs from North Port to downtown Sarasota’s Payne Park.
In 2025, a Friends of the Legacy Trail chart shows, a total of 608,492 people spent time on the Trail. However, that figure was down from the 2024 count of 644,408.
For January and February combined this year, the number of users was 144,905.