The Lake Sarasota Community Blog

As many know, Lake Sarasota and other Bee Ridge neighborhoods tried to work with RaceTrac to add some buffering to their landscaping - a few more trees, etc. Normally such large gas stations are not situated directly across from residential neighborhoods. Unfortunately the plans for the gas station were submitted years ago and approved by the Sarasota County Commission before virtually anyone in the community knew about it. The letter to County Administrator Thomas Harmer from a couple of days ago came from the Bee Ridge Neighborhoods Committee, which represents 14 communities along Bee Ridge Rd. and Bee Ridge Extension, comprising a total of over 9,000 rooftops. Mr. T. Harmer     tharmer@scgov.net County Administrator Sarasota County Dear Mr. Harmer:   Recently a RaceTrac gas station opened at the intersection of Manua Loa and Bee Ridge Road, (Northeast corner). While facing Bee Ridge, it sits directly across the street from ...

Many of us have enjoyed the lovely oak hammocks of Rothenbach Park at the east end of Bee Ridge Road: Rothenbach has developed a reputation as one of the most beautiful shaded walks and bicycle paths in Sarasota County. Now there's an initiative to make it even more beautiful and user friendly. Here's the beginning of a letter that went out to Lake Sarasotans and to other East Bee Ridge neighborhoods recently: What makes every community special is not that it is “perfect” from the very start, but that there is a consistent effort on the part of its citizenry to identify areas that need attention and to bring them up to the standards of the rest of our fine community. We are fortunate to have a wonderful Sarasota County Parks Department that has re-developed a “less than attractive” portion of our neighborhood (the landfill) and created a park and wildlife sanctuary that offers walking and biking trails as well as playground and picnic facilities with clean rest...

One of Sarasota County's project managers for the Bee Ridge Road widening provided some updates on that project at Friday's meeting of the Bee Ridge Neighborhood Committee. State to put in Sidewalk  In a surprise move, the state plans to build a sidewalk on the South side of Bee Ridge from Cattlemen to where the state's portion of Bee Ridge ends -- near the exit ramp from I-75. This project was moved up -- originally it was not expected to happen before 2018, but with this funding, it might be completed before the end of this year. This is great news for those who have had to walk along the roadway, or in the weeds, to get to businesses West of the highway. State's portion of Bee Ridge begins at the dark area marked with the yellow pointer. When the County completes its widening of Bee Ridge, a sidewalk will run along the south side, connecting with the state's sidewalk and providing a continuous walkway from Cattlemen out to the Bee Ridge extension. Ther...

A video of the recent Neighborhood Workshop for TerraCap's proposed rezoning of 7.7 acres of the Bee Ridge Park of Commerce, directly across from Lake Sarasota's front entrance.   The video is posted to Youtube . Here are a few brief highlights from the meeting.