Representative of firms undertaking analysis talks of potential steps to ‘reimagine’ the island’s appearance
Near the conclusion of a June 12 presentation to the Sarasota County Tourist Advisory Council (TDC), the team leader of an organization called the Siesta Key Beautification Alliance summed up the goal of a public-private partnership that the Alliance is seeking with the County Commission.
“If you don’t reinvest in it, eventually your cash cow will die,” Natalie Gutwein, a Siesta resident, told the council members.
In this case, that “cash cow” is Siesta Key.
That afternoon, Gutwein and Ryan Seacrist, a representative of RVi Planning + Landscape Architecture, which collaborates with Atwell, an engineering firm based in Sarasota, were seeking the support of the TDC members in the Alliance’s effort to try to persuade the County Commission to invest in improvements on Siesta Key that especially have been needed since the 2024 storm season.
Gutwein, a Realtor, has appeared before the commissioners twice in recent months to urge them to consider an infusion of tens of millions of dollars not just to restore the island to its pre-storm appearance but to enhance Siesta’s attraction to tourists.
During the TDC meeting, Seacrist pointed out that a comprehensive analysis that RVi and Atwell are undertaking will include a full cost proposal and recommendations for the phasing of needed improvements.
Private contributions of $33,000 have enabled the Alliance to contract with the firms, Gutwein said during the TDC meeting. (The last time she addressed the commissioners — on May 21 — she reported the sum was $30,000.)
By the time the approximately 30-minute-long agenda item concluded on June 12, the TDC members unanimously had voted in support of a motion by member Mike Holderness of Siesta Key that called for the county commissioners to allow county staff to schedule a similar Siesta Key Beautification Alliance presentation for them.
The Alliance represents residents, business owners, merchants and the Siesta Key Association (SKA) and the Siesta Key Chamber of Commerce, Gutwein explained to the TDC members. A member of the boards of both the SKA and the Chamber, she added, she has become the Alliance’s spokesperson.
At the outset of her remarks, Gutwein pointed out that the barrier island suffered through the “Invest 90L” storm in June 2024, Tropical Storm Debby in early August 2024, Hurricane Helene in September 2024 and Hurricane Milton in October 2024.
“Hurricane Helene covered the entire island in saltwater, which — we all know — is one of the most corrosive materials on the planet,” Gutwein said.
“Two weeks later,” she continued, “we received a direct hit from Milton. … The line of the storm went directly over my house.”
Gutwein added, “The devastation seemed insurmountable at times.”
Her house is elevated, she told the TDC members, so while she and her 15-year-old son spent days “throwing out literally tons of saltwater-soaked wreckage from Hurricane Helene,” at least they were fortunate in that their damage was not worse.
Many of her friends and neighbors “lost everything,” she added.
She showed the Council members photos depicting the flooding around Captain Curt’s Crab & Oyster Bar and Crescent Beach Market on south Siesta in Helene’s aftermath.
“Very soon,” Gutwein continued, “it became blatantly clear that our Key wasn’t going to recover without support.”
Conversations about the island’s condition “began surfacing from every angle,” she said. The situation was a focus of discussion at SKA and Chamber meetings, she added, as well as among homeowners, business owners “and even tourists.”
Those conversations resulted in the founding of the Alliance, Gutwein noted.
Then, as she has pointed out to the county commissioners, she told the Council members that Siesta’s strong annual contributions to the TDT revenue are “going to start to dwindle” without a significant investment in the island.
Before introducing Seacrist and Anthony Squitieri of Atwell, Gutwein noted that Seacrist’s remarks would serve as a “sneak peek” of the study that Atwell and RVi are undertaking.
A major source of tourism revenue for the county
The intent of the analysis, Seacrist explained to the TDC members, is to study the entire barrier island and the damage it incurred last year, plus “all the implications of that damage,” and then report on “ideas for moving it past existing conditions …”
Following the 2024 storm season, he pointed out, business owners “put in significant effort to get [Siesta] to the place it is today.”
State and federal funds were allocated to the clean-up, he acknowledged, which was “very much appreciated.”
Then Seacrist delved into Siesta’s contributions to the county’s Tourist Development Tax — or “bed tax” — revenue, which derives from a 6% surcharge on accommodations rented for six months or less time.
The first time Siesta was named the top beach in the United States was in 1987, he continued. This year, TripAdvisor ranked it No. 1 in the U.S. and No. 4 in the world, Seacrist added.
Using data from his research, Seacrist said that in the 2024 fiscal year, which ended on Sept. 30, 2024, 55% of the 2,894,100 visitors to the county — 1.6 million people — reported having visited Siesta. Downtown Sarasota was the only destination with a higher count, he noted: 66%.
Moreover, Seacrist said, 18% of the tourists to the county during the 2024 fiscal year said they stayed on Siesta; again, that figure was second to the one for downtown Sarasota.
The number of visitors in accommodations on the barrier island “declined significantly,” he emphasized, after Hurricanes Helene and Milton wrought so much damage on the Key. As a result, he continued, through the first seven months of this fiscal year, Siesta has marked about a 10% decline in the bed tax revenue it has contributed to the county.
The most recent reports produced by Sarasota County Tax Collector Mike Moran and his staff put TDT collections from Siesta at $6,739,552.65, from Oct. 1, 2024 through April of this year; that figure is down about 24%, compared to the total of $8,849,316.17 for the same period of the 2024 fiscal year.
(Sarasota News Leader research found in the records of the Sarasota County Tax Collector’s Office that, by the conclusion of the 2023 fiscal year, Siesta had accounted for 25.39% of the “bed tax” revenue, a total of $12,688,756.76, out of nearly $50 million. Later refinement of the total Tourist Development Tax revenue for that fiscal year — through audits and other enforcement action — raised the total to $50,481,031.82.
(For the 2024 fiscal year, hosts of accommodations on Siesta again contributed nearly $13 million — $12,885,158.65 — to the overall bed tax collections of $48,381,666.72, the Tax Collector’s Office records show.
(Going back even farther, to the 2018 fiscal year, Siesta Key was credited with contributing 31.09% of the TDT revenue, which added up to $22,791,246.28.)
The RVi/Atwell mission, Seacrist told the TDC members, is threefold:
- Restore the beach, whose condition is not what it was at this time in 2024.
- Revitalize the island by bringing it up to the standards seen in downtown Sarasota, including an abundance of landscaping and bicycle paths. (He pointed to the look of Ringling Boulevard, with its dedicated bike lane, as an example.)
- Reimagine its appearance, potentially with new gateways.
In terms of the restoration phase, Seacrist noted, “The saltwater has removed [most] of the landscape beds,” while trees are missing “and the understory [the underlying layer of vegetation] is non-existent.”
Some of the landscaping in Siesta Village, he added, “wasn’t necessarily salt-tolerant.” Sustainable plantings should be used, he said.
Debris still covers much of the public infrastructure, Seacrist continued, including some of the bike lanes and sidewalks.
Further, he pointed out, “A lot of the buildings out there have been destroyed.” Thus, the opportunity exists to restore the character of the island, as well, perhaps with architecture that reflects the history of the county.
Further, the island’s stormwater system needs to be cleaned out, he continued, and improved bicycle and pedestrian paths should be created. Safety for visitors should be a primary focus, Seacrist told the TDC members.
(In 2019, Sarasota County staff hired a Tampa consulting firm to study transportation issues on Siesta and offer recommendations for improvements. Very few of those recommendations have been implemented, with county staff citing the expense entailed.)
The Key also needs more public restrooms and wayfinding measures, Seacrist told the TDC members. (Even before he was elected to the County Commission, in November 2022, long-time Siesta leader Mark Smith was advocating for public restrooms in Siesta Village, with an emphasis on what he stressed was a simple approach to keep costs low. The county’s Public Works staff ended up producing a detailed report with a much higher expense, resulting in a pause in Smith’s initiative.)
As Seacrist concluded his presentation, he acknowledged, “These are ambitious plans, but intentionally so.”
When the TDC chair, County Commission Chair Joe Neunder, asked whether anyone had questions, Sarasota city Commissioner Jen Ahearn-Koch did engage in an exchange with Seacrist about the Tourist Development Tax revenue figures, saying that she found the data interesting.
Ahearn-Koch also asked Gutwein whether the Alliance plans to pay for any of the improvements that will be proposed. Gutwein told her that it does not.
“Who would fund those?” Ahearn-Koch asked.
“That’s what we’re looking for,” Gutwein told her. “We believe [the money is] going to have to come from several different sources.”
Then Gutwein stressed that, in spite of the annual bed tax revenue that Siesta Key produces, the only county assistance that it gets in return, out of those funds, is in the form of beach maintenance.
Part of the reason she became involved with the Alliance, Gutwein also noted, was that when she has clients coming to Siesta to look at $5-million homes, and see the current condition of the island, she can tell they are skeptical about being asked to pay so much for a home there.