Sarasota Alliance For Historic Preservation Inc

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Profile Expiration Date: September 25, 2024

Our Story

Our Mission:

Preserve and Enhance Our Historic Places Through Advocacy, Education, Financial and Technical Tools, and Celebration.

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The History and Mission of the Sarasota Alliance for Historic Preservation 

The Sarasota Alliance for Historic Preservation, Inc. (SAHP) is a non-profit, publicly supported 501(c)(3) organization founded in Sarasota in 1985. Unlike other county-wide preservation organizations, our mission is to educate and advocate for the preservation of Sarasota’s historic built environment by proactively engaging with residents, visitors, property owners, elected officials, city and county staff, and other local organizations with allied goals. 


The SAHP is a self-governed, volunteer organization administered by a Board of Directors whose members possess knowledge and skills vital to the organization’s success. This is a working Board, and, as such, each director participates in multiple ways that draw on his/her professional experience and background to help us fulfill our mission. 


Our members and supporters are composed of hundreds of residents, visitors, artists, architects, engineers, historians, builders, archaeologists, Realtors, planners, designers, and writers working together to preserve and encourage others to identify and preserve the remaining significant historic landmarks, emerging treasures, and the character-defining elements of the historic residential neighborhoods that define Sarasota County.


SAHP was incorporated as the result of a grass-roots effort to save architect Dwight Baum's landmark El Vernona Hotel. The El Vernona was built in 1925 by owner Owen Burns and was situated near the corner of US 41 and Gulfstream Avenue, currently occupied by the Ritz Carlton properties. By the 1980s, it was known as the John Ringling Towers and was used for student housing for the Ringling College of Art & Design. Our highly publicized efforts to save the towers during the 1990s raised the community's consciousness and the ire of those interested in protecting the historical integrity of Sarasota. In spite of a dramatic outpouring of support by public, private, and corporate friends, the SAHP was not able to save the John Ringling Towers, and it fell to the wrecking ball in 1998.


The Alliance and its Board members work collaboratively with other county preservation organizations, property owners, neighborhood associations, county and city staff, councils and commissions, historic preservation boards, and county historical resources to promote historic preservation, advocate for the conservation of threatened structures, inventory historic resources and obtain historical designations. In 2021, we expanded our south county efforts by recruiting four new board members who are well-known and active in preservation efforts in the City of Venice, particularly in the community’s opposition to the City Council’s efforts in 2022-2023 to gut its historic preservation program. 


Over the years, our successful advocacy efforts included halting the demolition of Etowah, a magnificent bay-front home in Indian Beach, and partnering with the Sarasota City Staff and the Historic Preservation Board to complete a complex zoning code revision that expanded protections for historic properties and enabled new incentives for local designations. 


Beginning in 2010, we established a Preservation Fund, which has been used to provide financial support for the protection and restoration of important historic resources, including the relocation of the Green Street Church in Englewood, restoration work on the Crocker Memorial Church in Pioneer Park and the Caples Mansion, halt the demolition of Etowah, a magnificent bay-front home in Indian Beach, and, in partnership with the Sarasota City Staff and its Historic Preservation Board, to complete a complex zoning code revision that expanded protections for historic properties and enabled new incentives for local designation.


Most recently, we provided funding for legal expenses in the community’s fight (unsuccessfully) to save the G-Wiz from demolition,  allocated $8,800 to hire a consultant to prepare a national historic designation for the Vamo Lodge, recently acquired by Sarasota County Parks and Recreation, and over $7,000 to publish, in late 2021, a manuscript written by Jeff LaHurd on the history of the development of the North Tamiami Trail. This work was supplemented by the inclusion of a foreword, written by SAHP, that highlighted the role that the City’s first historically black neighborhood, called Overtown, played in this development and the impact of Jim Crow laws and segregation on leading to Overtown’s demise and exclusion of the black community from enjoying the benefits of the North Trail and City’s development through the 1960s and into the 1970s. This year, we provided the St. Paul Lutheran Church in Sarasota with $4,000 in assistance to the capital campaign to repair and preserve the Victor Lundy-designed Education Center, and we engaged a consulting firm to help engineer changes to Sarasota's development code to allow transfer of development rights from historic properties to new developments.


The SAHP is currently engaged in building community support for the preservation of the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, which is threatened with ultimate demolition by neglect. The new proposed Sarasota Performing ARts Center, as currently chartered, will render this icon economically obsolete and unable to sustain itself.


SAHP launched an advocacy campaign in 2022 for the preservation of significant historic resources within the City of Venice, such as the historic Walter Farley house and studio.

During the pandemic, we transitioned our Annual Historic Homes Tour to a masked walking tour, exploring the neighborhoods of Central Cocoanut, Arlington Park, Grenada, and Vamo. 


We are often working against strong pro-development forces and less than supportive local government jurisdictions, which, more often than not, leave us painfully short on such victories. Rather than accept defeat, we believe that the solution to slow down the loss of our historic resources is to re-double our efforts to educate on the benefits of historic preservation that can often help maximize the economic potential of a property without needing to bulldoze its historic character. Research clearly shows that historic preservation is integral to solving the affordable housing crisis as well as reducing our ecological footprint and reducing carbon emissions. 


Perhaps most significantly, in 2022, the SAHP Board undertook a bold initiative to offer an innovative funded preservation program in Sarasota County. The 1772 Fund provided a grant to study the feasibility of the SAHP creating a historic preservation easement program and a revolving fund to help historic property owners of modest means maintain and preserve their properties. The study, together with our own survey, established the demand for these programs. Fundraising efforts began in April 2022, and through the third quarter of 2023, with the generous support of our sponsors, board members, and member and supporters, we have raised over $160,000 in seed capital. Both programs were launched in 2023. 


Our fundraising goal is to raise $300,000 in capital by 2024. We are very grateful to the 1772 Foundation, the Community Foundation and Patterson Foundations, the Gulf Coast Community Foundation, Providence Revolving Fund,  and Caplin Foundation for their generous financial and technical support.


Contact

Sarasota Alliance For Historic Preservation Inc

PO Box 1754
Sarasota, FL 34230

Thomas McArdle
sahp.mailbox@gmail.com
Phone: 941-254-3002
https://preservesrq.org/

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