This view from the Ritz-Carlton in Sarasota depicts the pristine vision of Florida that most out-of-state visitors carry. Such views are bountiful in this county.

The I-75 Hotbed Sarasota County is hot, but one particular artery seems to be attracting the bulk of the development. Running north and south through the county, the road pulls in businesses like magnet to steel. A recent report from Clearwater real estate firm Colliers Arnold, for example, cites Interstate 75 through Manatee and Sarasota counties as "one of Florida's top growth corridors." Company chairman Lee Arnold expects the corridor to become "one of the state's high-growth hotspots" over the next year or so.

"The corridor has really exploded in the last 10 years," Baylis adds. "At the north end we have Lakewood Ranch, where the majority of the corporate activity has been in Sarasota County. Coming down the corridor to Fruitville Road we've seen commercial, office and retail development, and heading south to North Port both Sumpter Boulevard and Toledo Blade have seen a lot of commercial activity."

Even further south, the city of Venice is holding its own in the race to draw industrial and traffic-intensive employment centers to the I-75 corridor, Baylis says, thus insulating the residential and tourist areas from impacts associated with such essential economic citizens. One of Venice's biggest announcements this year was the ground breaking for the Sunshine Venice Commercial Park, located on 26 acres within the Sarasota County Interstate Business Center.

As the second-fastest growing community in South Florida, North Port is transforming itself from an affordable, bedroom community for its neighboring metros into a standalone community that not only houses but also employs its residents. According to Robert Tunis, the city's economic development manager, Sarasota General Hospital just announced that it might set up a facility in North Port ­ yet another sign of maturation for the area.

"North Port has fostered a development scenario that allows attractive housing costs to draw the youthful workforce that employers need," says Baylis. "The result is economic growth with a high rate of home ownership, which often correlates to a more stable community."

Tunis, who says the city has already issued about 1,800 new home permits this year, expects current population of 27,000 to increase about 15 percent annually, and says several large, office-type developments will soon come out of the ground. "In the last year or so we've created about 1,000 jobs just from the existing infrastructure," says Tunis.

North Port's ace in the hole, says Tunis, lies in the number of residents who commute out of the city every day to go to work. "We have a large population which commutes either north or south," says Tunis. "If the job opportunities were here, they will probably stay to take advantage of that."

Changes in Store As Sarasota County looks to the future, it sees only good things ahead. As the nation emerges from a lengthy economic downturn, the lights ahead only look brighter for the county, which has held its own and thrived through a very difficult few years.

<<Back