The Sarasota County Board of County Commissioners voted on Tuesday, Dec. 16, to allocate approximately $57 million in federal disaster recovery funding through the Resilient SRQ Infrastructure Program, a HUD Community Development Block Grant–Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) initiative tied to Hurricanes Debby, Helene and Milton. The funding was distributed among nine projects countywide, with awards ranging from large-scale floodplain and transportation initiatives to targeted community and infrastructure improvements.
The largest awards included approximately $16 million for the Sarasota County Forest Lakes Floodplain Creation and Mitigation Initiative and roughly $15 million for Sarasota County’s River Road Interstate Connector infrastructure upgrades in Englewood. The City of Sarasota’s St. Armands Resiliency & Flood Mitigation Project received $13.5 million, making it the third-largest award approved under the program. Additional allocations included $6 million for the Bahia Vista Flood Mitigation Project; approximately $3 million for the Southgate Regional Lift Station Expansion; $3 million for the Newtown Boys & Girls Club rebuild; $750,000 for Venice YMCA campus improvements, including a commercial kitchen rebuild; $261,000 for the Family Promise Shamrock Emergency Shelter Project; and $179,000 for the Sarasota County sewer lift station bypass pumps project.
Public speakers who spoke to the St. Armands project included St. Armands residents, business owners and commercial property owners; representatives of the barrier islands’ employers; leadership from the City of Sarasota; and officials from the Town of Longboat Key, including the mayor and deputy town manager. Additional elected officials also attended in support.
Among those addressing the commission was Eleni Sokos, executive vice-president and managing partner of Oysters Rock Hospitality, which owns Café on St. Armands (formerly Café L’Europe). Sokos acknowledged that commissioners were being asked to direct a significant share of available funding to a district often perceived as affluent, while emphasizing that the Circle’s economy depends heavily on low- and moderate-income hospitality workers and independently owned businesses. She framed the decision as a strategic investment in economic viability rather than a symbolic one, noting repeated flooding impacts on businesses and warning that without infrastructure protection, local commerce, culture, and livelihoods risk long-term erosion…