One Stop Housing, partnering with the Arts Alliance and Barancik Foundation, plans to build 75 units on the North Trail.
By Johannes Werner
Original Air Date: February 4, 2026
Rendering of the Artscape concept. Courtesy: One Stop Housing
Host: Artscape is an unusual development in Sarasota—an affordable housing complex with 75 apartments for artists. This Wednesday, developer Mark Vengroff presented a preliminary version to City of Sarasota planners, and we have the details.
Johannes Werner: It all started with the Barancik Foundation and the Sarasota Arts and Cultural Alliance, a roof organization for 80 orchestras, theaters, ballets, performance venues and the like. The Arts Alliance’s executive director, Brian Hersh, kept telling the foundation—a major channel for grants and facilitator for wealthy donors in this area—how much artists and arts organizations here need affordable housing.
Brian Hersh
Brian Hersh: We owe a commitment to artists of today and tomorrow, to make sure they have a place to live to be able to create their work. … We have an art school—we have an art college—the Ringling College of Art and Design. Imagine, once students graduate, where would they live?
JW: Mark Vengroff is the founder of One Stop Housing, a private developer focused on building and managing apartments for working people. They own and manage about 4,000 units, most of them in Sarasota and Manatee Counties.
For Vengroff, Artscape started when Barancik worked with One Stop on a teacher housing project in Arcadia, in neighboring DeSoto County:
Mark Vengroff
Mark Vengroff: We are working in the DeSoto School District to build housing for the teachers, and the Barancik Foundation was generous enough to put in a pretty sizable grant to help us to make the numbers work to provide affordable housing for teachers there. …
The development with DeSoto was going so well, the Barancik Foundation said, ‘Maybe we can do another one.’ I said, ‘I’d love to. I have a property here on Tamiami. What would you like this for? You want teachers again? Police officers? What’s the group that you’d like to focus on?’ They said, ‘How about artists?’
JW: To make Artscape work financially, Vengroff is asking the city to allow variances. While the height of the building will fit existing zoning, the number of apartments may be higher, and the number of parking spaces will be lower than local rules allow. Wielding an additional instrument, Vengroff is using the state’s Live Local Act, which overrides local zoning if a project includes affordable housing.
And that, Artscape would have. One Stop is currently planning for 75 apartments, all of them for artists and all of them affordable. Vengroff said the planning is not complete yet, but the one-bedroom units could start at around $1,000 to $1,100 a month, utilities included. The target is to make them affordable for people living off 60 to 80 percent of the area’s median income. The biggest available size will be two-bedroom apartments.
The Arts Alliance’s Hersh says its size and focus on long-term housing for artists sets Artscape apart in Sarasota.
BH: This is not what we would refer to as gig housing, where someone’s coming in for a season and [needing] temporary housing for their three-month run. This is for people who are living and working and part of our community. These are year-long leases, at least, that really make sure that these are residents and people who are living and working here in Sarasota, not just people coming in for a short-term run.
The concept also includes office space for the Sarasota Arts and Cultural Alliance, as well as exhibition space and a rooftop performance venue. One Stop is using the Live Local Act, asking for higher density and less parking. Rendering courtesy One Stop Housing
JW: Also included in the design is office space for the Arts Alliance and performance and exhibition space.
How about the neighbors? Once One Stop, the Alliance and Barancik agreed on a concept, they presented it to the board of the Indian Beach Sapphire Shores Neighborhood Association. The board asked for a few changes, including the possibility of holding its meetings at Artscape. Vengroff says they accommodated the neighbors’ wishes. The reaction to his presentation at the December meeting of the neighborhood association was supportive, if not enthusiastic, according to Vengroff.
On Wednesday, Vengroff discussed his pre-application with the City of Sarasota’s Development Review Committee. Before the meeting, he said he expected city planners to ask for many changes.
MV: We’ll get a lot of preliminary feedback. We’re really looking forward to hearing what they have, and then we’ll make the adjustments accordingly.
JW: In the meantime, One Stop must secure an estimated $10 million in funding. The Barancik Foundation has committed $1.2 million. Vengroff is optimistic he and his partners will be able to raise the remainder, mostly from performing arts groups and their donors.
MV: There’s a number of other organizations, including foundations, that are very interested in also contributing, but the bulk of those dollars that we’re seeking, we’re hoping, are going to come from the performing arts groups or donors of the performing arts groups that want to set aside units on a priority basis for those specific performing groups.
JW: The Arts Alliance will manage the event space, and One Stop Housing will manage the apartments.
How will artists subject to feast-and-famine income cycles be able to afford rent? Vengroff says One Stop will keep rents low enough for artists to save money to set aside for drought times. And there’s also other types of help.
MV: We have an organization. It’s a nonprofit called One Stop Cares. They’re a 501(c)(3). They provide consulting and wraparound services for a lot of our residents at One Stop Housing. One of the things that they do really well is they partner with various banks and other financial organizations to help on budgeting, opening up savings accounts, putting a little bit of money away. A lot of times, they’ll even help match some of the savings that some of the residents will do. So if an artist is starting to do fairly well, providing and being very proactive in helping them to start to create some kind of savings and park some money away into a savings account so when they don’t have a good month or good year, they’ll be okay. Keeping the rents low will definitely help them have that available cash flow.
Coastwood Apartments
JW: One downside: One Stop will have to tear down its Coastwood Apartments. The two old motel buildings with 25 single-bedroom units offer affordable rentals to low-income tenants. What will happen to those tenants?
MV: We have about 4,000 units, a lot of which are in Sarasota and Manatee County. We’re building about 800 units right now under construction that are going up. … So we’ll have opportunities to move any of those residents that want. We always give them priority, and we always help them with the rent, to try to make things truly affordable. If anything, they’re going to end up with a brand new, beautiful apartment for very little increase—if any—for those people. We’ll help to make that a truly smooth transition. We’re very mission-driven, so we’re not going to leave anybody behind, especially if they’ve been good tenants for us.
JW: There is no waiting list yet for Artscape apartments. If you want to stay in touch, contact the Sarasota Arts and Cultural Alliance or One Stop Housing.
Johannes Werner, reporting for WSLR News.
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