Nashville-based developer wants to tear down Sarasota’s Historic Downtown Village and put a ‘superblock’ there.

By Noah Bookstein

Original Air Date: April 15, 2026

The Historic Downtown Village—a collection of 1920s woodframes at the edge of downtown Sarasota—is on the chopping block. Yesterday, the developer who wants to replace them with a two-block apartment complex met with neighbors and existing business tenants who may have to look for another location. Noah Bookstein was there.

Noah Bookstein: Business owners in Sarasota’s Historic Downtown Village are in the dark about the status of their lease agreements. 

Steven and Laetitia run Fam Cuisine, a plant-based restaurant in the village. 

The Historic Downtown Village consists of 22 lots with 1920s cottages. Business tenants include a restaurant, cafe, offices, and retailers. Photo by Johannes Werner

Steven Kepecz: Currently we all have leases in place and we’re all reviewing them with different outcomes in our own non-attorney minds. Do you have any knowledge of these leases being cut short?

Phillip DiMaria: No knowledge. I’m sorry. I wish—I wish.

NB: That’s Phillip DiMaria, a representative for Nashville-based Bristol Development Group. The Gillespie Park Neighborhood Association heard about their plans for the two blocks fronting Fruitville Road at their evening meeting on Tuesday.

Bristol plans to raze the colorful 1920s cottages that are home to small businesses including two restaurants, boutiques and galleries and replace them with a large five-story apartment complex and parking garage on two blocks from Fruitville to 4th Street and Gillespie Avenue. No retail space is planned for the existing businesses.

Rendering of the proposed project, 1899 Fruitville

Residents are bracing for years of construction and the eventual influx of traffic on the neighborhood’s narrow streets. Residents remember when a previous nearby development lied about securing a permit to run machinery twenty-four hours a day.

Kelly Brown is the president of the Gillespie Park neighborhood association. 

Kelly Brown: We really want to make sure that the people that live here and are going to live with whatever’s built there have their opportunity to speak. We want the businesses to have their opportunity to ask the questions—to say, “What’s going to happen to us? Where do we go? What can we do?”

NB: The meeting was not a requirement for the developer. 

PD: This is a voluntary development update we wanted to give. We had a series of very productive meetings, and we thought it was extremely fruitful to have these sorts of conversations where we can get an understanding of what folks are experiencing day-to-day—challenges, concerns—those sorts of things.

Photo by Johannes Werner

NB: All of the businesses on the property rent from a single owner, the Lancaster family, who have held the land for more than twenty years.

One business tenant described how they have been left in the dark.

Tenant: We’ve had no communication. We found out via the newspaper the entire time.

NB: Brown urged business owners to request a meeting with the Lancaster family directly to ask what, if anything, was negotiated on their behalf in the sale agreement.

WSLR News reached out to the Lancaster family, but did not receive a response before the deadline.

Concerned residents and business owners showed up to Tuesday’s meeting with little recourse and no formal say in the planned development.

The project falls under what the city calls administrative review, where city staff decide whether or not it gets the green light. 

Photo by Johannes Werner

This particular project does not require a community workshop because the developer wants to build within a zone that has already been slated for development. 

PD: It’s zoned downtown edge, so a project like this is effectively—the site’s entitled for it. This is implementation of a city plan that was adopted 25-odd years ago. As long as the market supports this sort of project, this is the sort of project that could be seen as being highest and best use.

NB: The displacement business owners are facing is the outcome of a planning framework that prioritizes development according to market conditions without the local community’s voices. 

One business owner cut through the hedging in the room.

Tenant: No company is going to—first of all, you keep referring to “if the sale goes through.” Nobody’s going to hire you guys to spend all this money for a potential sale to go through. I just feel like it’s an unspoken truth that this is all going through—this is going to happen—and we all just need to be prepared.

NB: DiMaria didn’t disagree. He acknowledged that the majority of applications his firm has worked on in recent years do ultimately get built.

Photo by Johannes Werner

Even if Bristol walks away, another developer would likely follow.

KB: Honestly, I think, if this didn’t go through, I believe your current landlord will go find another buyer because they’re ready to sell.

NB: With the sale not yet finalized, tenants still don’t know when they’ll need to leave, what their leases actually guarantee or where they’ll go.

KB: This is America and then we are a capitalist country. They’re allowed to sell their property to anybody that wants to buy it.

NB: Noah Bookstein reporting for WSLR News.

WSLR News aims to keep the local community informed with our 1/2 hour local news show, quarterly newspaper and social media feeds. The local news broadcast airs on Wednesdays and Fridays at 6pm.