Editor's note: This story was originally published by Suncoast Searchlight.
The fate of a more than century-old downtown Sarasota building could be headed to court following a last-ditch effort from a preservation group trying to stop it from being razed for luxury condos.
Members of the Sarasota Alliance for Historic Preservation said city officials sidestepped the public review process typically required before potentially historic structures can be demolished. The U.S. Garage building should have undergone a formal historic review after developers sought demolition permits tied to plans for two luxury high-rise towers downtown, Alliance members said.
Instead, the city relied on a single unsigned form attributed to former historic preservation chief Clifford Smith to determine the building was not historically significant — allowing the project to move forward administratively without a public hearing before the Historic Preservation Board.
The determination was made before the current owners purchased the property. Smith died in 2024, making it impossible to verify details surrounding the review now at the center of the dispute.
The dispute is the latest in a series of recent attempts by residents to save historically significant properties that long made the city unique and ward off the new luxury high-rises trying to replace them.
“Iconic buildings like the U.S. Garage are few and far between anywhere in Florida,” said Sarasota historian Jeff LeHurd. “If you can save them in one way or another, you add to the uniqueness of a particular place like Sarasota, which used to be totally unique, but now has just gotten to be a haven for high-rise condominiums and office buildings. And frankly, I think it’s lost both its uniqueness and its charm because of that.”
After assembling the sites for $26 million in 2024 and 2025, the Lutgert Companies plans to turn the U.S. Garage building and a large parking lot nearby into two high-rise towers — one at 18 stories for luxury condos and another 10-story apartment building.
The development would line Pineapple Avenue where U.S. Garage is located and take over the corner of Ringling Boulevard and Palm Avenue. The project would also include about 30,000 square feet of commercial space.
The Naples-based developer has used a controversial state law known as the Live Local Act to bypass downtown height restrictions while also tapping the city’s density bonuses to pack nearly 190 units on just over 2 acres.
A key component of Live Local requires eligible builders to set aside a certain portion of units as “attainable housing.” The property, now marketed as The Adagio, will offer just eight units for renters earning less than the region’s area median income. The remaining 68 “attainable” units would be priced for residents making 120%, or about $130,000 for a family of four.
But it’s not the scale of the development that has upset members of the Alliance for Historic Preservation. It’s the city’s unwillingness to acknowledge the structure as a historic property – and the absence of any public discussion prior to sealing its fate.
Lorrie Muldowney, a past president of the Alliance, said the city’s processes require a review any time a demolition permit is requested. That would mean another review should have occurred in late 2025.
No documentation of such a review was included in records reviewed by Suncoast Searchlight.
Sarasota city officials say they followed proper procedures in the demolition permit application, pointing to previous surveys in 2003 and 2010, when the property was deemed ineligible for local or national historic designation.
Robert K. Lincoln, a Sarasota attorney representing the developer, also defended the demolition permit. He said his client made sure the property wouldn’t qualify for historic status prior to closing on the land and argued that allowing the Alliance to challenge the permit could create a bureaucratic blueprint applied far wider than just this case.
He said the Alliance is taking what should be a voluntary decision to designate a building as historic and forcing it to be recognized as such, something that could impact the rights of property owners throughout the city.
“The process wasn’t something done to them,” Lincoln said of the city’s historic preservation efforts. “It was something done with them.”
The Alliance took its case to the city’s Board of Adjustment late last month, but the group was never able to publicly argue the merits of the case. The board denied them standing to appeal the permit.
Morgan Bentley, a lawyer hired by the nonprofit, confirmed to Suncoast Searchlight that his firm is preparing an appeal in the 12th Judicial Circuit Court that will be filed in the coming weeks.
“We were not able to make a case, and nor has the public had an opportunity,” Muldowney said. “There were neighbors who said we didn’t know. We haven’t had a chance to comment.”
Alliance formed to save buildings faced early defeat
The Sarasota Alliance for Historic Preservation was formed more than 40 years ago to try and save the deteriorating John Ringling Towers, a hotel that once stood just north of the downtown bridge to Lido Key.
The famous circus tycoon bought the building in the wake of the Great Florida Land Boom in 1929, where it served for decades as a posh destination for the city’s wealthy and elite, ultimately being named to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.
Despite the Alliance’s strides, the property was razed in 1998 to make way for Sarasota’s first Ritz-Carlton.
While the Alliance’s inaugural efforts were unsuccessful, the conversation raised awareness of historic preservation in Sarasota. Now each year, the nonprofit puts out a list of six buildings to save to gain public support for its efforts.
In recent years, the Alliance has notched some key wins preserving several buildings named to its annual “Six to Save” list.
That has included the city’s first hotel for Black guests.
Built in 1926, the Colson Hotel was slated for the wrecking ball to make way for apartments along 8th Street in the Rosemary District.
A coalition that included local company DreamLarge, Gulf Coast Community Foundation, the Sarasota Alliance for Historic Preservation and Black civic leaders purchased the property in late 2024. The group plans to preserve and rehabilitate the historic site.
“We didn’t just simply rest by saying (the Colston Hotel) is wonderful, and you shouldn’t demolish it,” said Jan Hetland, a member of the Alliance. “We literally worked something out and acquired it.”
U.S. Garage was added to the Alliance’s annual list only recently but faces the biggest threat of the six buildings the nonprofit has focused on this year, with a permit already in hand and a project moving through the city’s Development Review Committee.
The two-story building was once a state-of-the-art garage with an elevator for wealthy residents to lift their cars to the second floor, securing fleets of expensive vehicles over the hot summer months when their owners left to return north. The Alliance contends the building was the first garage in Sarasota, and possibly the first in the state.
The U.S. Garage Building at 330 S. Pineapple Avenue in downtown Sarasota was built with a functional elevator in 1925. The mechanical bones of that elevator still exist today.
Frank Folsom Smith, a famous architect and former owner of the building, documented the structure in his memoir “Test of Time” published by Sarasota-based Peppertree Press in 2022. The garage was first used as a Cadillac showroom and later by local dealership Anderson Ford.
Smith completed a rehabilitation of U.S. Garage in 1982 that converted the building into offices.
“The building was large and structurally substantial,” he wrote. “It was — and still is — one of the strongest buildings in town, with reinforced concrete construction, brick-bearing walls and a roof with steel trusses.”
Because of Smith’s architectural fingerprints throughout the area, the Alliance argues his connection to the property strengthens their case that U.S. Garage is historic.
But like the Ringling Towers, it has proved tough to save.
Lincoln, the attorney representing the developer, told Suncoast Searchlight there’s a reason for that. The current owners walked the property with the city’s former historic preservation expert before purchasing the building to make sure they were on the same page.
The Alliance argues there is a lack of documentation. The current demolition permit contains just a single sheet of paper. There’s no written explanation of why the building doesn’t qualify as historically significant, and since the reviewer died in 2024, it’s impossible to verify details with him.
So far, Lincoln’s argument seems to be prevailing.
Hetland and Ron Kashden, a board member of the Alliance, argued legalities for more than an hour before the city officials on April 29 in an attempt to gain the legal status needed to challenge the demolition permit. They were never allowed to introduce the merits of their case — only whether or not they could challenge it before the city at all.
That failed effort left Kashden disappointed.
“Why did the city even direct us to this (board) in the first place if we didn’t really have a way to challenge it?” Kashden said.
Kashden said the Alliance has spent years advocating for historic preservation with many of its own members living close to U.S. Garage. Now they plan to take the fight to a judge.
“It’s headed to circuit court,” Kashden told Suncoast Searchlight.
City surveys deemed U.S. Garage ineligible, but experts disagree
Thousands of buildings in Sarasota constructed before 1965 can be found on the Florida Master Site File, the state’s inventory of historical and cultural resources. In Sarasota, that listing can matter when an owner seeks demolition.
Since U.S. Garage was built in 1925, it was included among the thousands of other city structures on that list.
Being on the list automatically triggers a planning department review to determine if the property “may be eligible” for designation as a historic property. Twice, U.S. Garage was deemed ineligible.
But those previous determinations in the early 2000s and 2010s were completed by an outside consultant surveying hundreds of properties at once, said Muldowney, who has been active in historic preservation for more than 25 years and sits on the city’s Historic Preservation Board.
Muldowney said those surveys are not as comprehensive as the city staff review required for demolition permits.
“They’re not meant to be used as the be-all, end-all,” she said.
Some of the previous surveys note the “altered facade” of the building due to its 1982 rehabilitation, deeming the property not eligible for historic recognition.
Muldowney argued that instead of disqualifying the property, they should have recognized its status as one of the earliest attempts to repurpose older buildings in downtown Sarasota using modern standards for historic preservation.
“That’s where the surveyors kind of got confused,” she said. “They were looking at the building and not understanding what it had looked like previously.”
Lincoln argues the city properties on the state’s master file include unremarkable structures, including hundreds of homes in South Gate, with some of the requirements “unfair to property owners.”
“Dr. Smith tried to address the missing part of the current ordinance by reviewing the history, visiting the building, and meeting with representatives of the buyer (now owner),” Lincoln wrote in an email to Suncoast Searchlight. “SAHP (The Alliance) may not like Dr. Smith’s determination, but it was consistent with prior findings.”
Others argue that as Sarasota’s reputation as a destination spot grows, the character that drew many residents to the area is fading into the pages of history.
Earlier this year, a developer filed plans to replace a string of colorful bungalows along Fruitville Road to make way for more high-rise towers, joining others that already dot the cityscape.
It’s a process that’s been repeated throughout the city, with historians noting the story behind a place can sometimes be just as valuable as its real estate.
“They have that sign on I-75 that says historic district,” LeHurd said. “But what historic district? I mean there’s a few buildings left downtown, but I would not call it a historic district in the real sense of the word. It’s like a cavern of tall buildings.
“Now it just seems to be a community of strangers.”
Derek Gilliam is a watchdog/investigative reporter for Suncoast Searchlight. Email him at derek@suncoastsearchlight.org. Suncoast Searchlight is a nonprofit newsroom of the Community News Collaborative serving Sarasota, Manatee, and DeSoto counties.
