Action: Preserve Payne Park

PRESERVE PAYNE PARK

Come to the City of Sarasota Commission meeting, City Hall, 1565 First Street, Monday, May 20th 6:00 p.m. (arrive early if you can – you may need to be there by 5:00 to get a seat).  We want to fill city hall with park supporters. The Orchestra’s plan to hijack seven acres of our public park in order to build the largest structure in the City is the only item on the agenda. If you wish to speak, sign a speakers' card at the hall entrance. You are allowed three minutes. Please wear YELLOW!  

Contact Us

Write the Sarasota City Commission:  commissioners@sarasotafl.gov 

Sign our petition  

Visit our Website  

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The Sarasota Orchestra is petitioning the City to give away seven acres of our community park to develop a 2,500-seat music hall. This amounts to over five football fields of concrete and asphalt covering precious greenspace. Under their plan, a duck pond, now teaming with life, would be paved over to add “convenience parking” for the Orchestra’s employees and big donors. This is simply wrong.

Payne Park, a 40-acre community park centrally-located in downtown Sarasota (on Adams Lane off  US 301), was donated to the city with the stipulation that it always be a public park. The Payne family explicitly forbade any other use of this land when they presented  “the greatest gift Sarasota has ever received” to the citizens. 

The City of Sarasota reopened the former ballpark-site as Payne Park on October 6, 2007, as a public park space partially funded by a funded by a county-wide penny surtax. After a $20 million dollar investment of our tax dollars, the park as it stands today features a tennis center, a skateboard park, Frisbee golf course, tracks for walking and riding bikes, three ponds, a circus playground, a cafe, numerous shade trees, and established wildlife habitat.  

Help us save this park land from development! The Manatee Sierra Club and the Sarasota Audubon Society support our efforts to preserve one of the rare park natural environments that remain in downtown Sarasota. You don’t need a ticket to enjoy Payne Park. It is free!

Once it is gone…. It’s gone!  Please take action today!

Manatee-Sarasota Sierra Club opposes Payne Park Giveaway

Dear Commissioners,

The Sarasota Orchestra cites “global warming” as their reason to quit participation in the future $200 million Bayfront project. Their new vision proposes developing a massive 2,500-seat concert hall at Payne Park—eliminating seven (7) acres of open public green space, a wildlife-filled lake and 2 ponds, and numerous shade trees.

It is ironic that orchestra’s vision to destroy and pave over an existing healthy urban ecosystem at Payne Park will actually contribute to “global warming.”
 

The principle vision of the City of Sarasota Parks + Connectivity Master Plan refers to Payne Park as a “signature park” and states:

• “The public is a stake holder in their community park.” 
• “To be successful parks must provide users the opportunity to experience and enjoy nature.” 
• “Built elements should respect the landscape and complement the natural environment.”   
• “Sarasota’s physical environment encompasses a variety of individual ecosystems that contribute to the area’s overall quality of life. These ecosystems not only improve air and water quality,. . .  but also serve as habitats for threatened and endangered species.” 

“The preservation of these areas is critical to the City of Sarasota’s future. Efforts to protect habitats, flora, and fauna should include, but not be limited to, functional and native landscaping, reduced impervious surfaces, minimization of area disturbance, and public education.”

“ To be successful parks must provide users the opportunity to experience and enjoy nature.”

The Sierra Club puts high value on accessible public open space, parks, open-air recreational activities, and outdoor community gathering places with natural ecosystems that are accessible to all citizens regardless of age, income or location, as laid out in the city parks connectivity plan. You don’t need an expensive ticket to experience the joys of Payne Park. 

Nothing in the Sarasota City park plan, nor the recorded park deed stipulations,  sets forth bestowing seven (7) acres of public park green space to be bulldozed and covered in concrete!  In fact, just the polar opposite. So why on earth is the city wasting tax payer dollars even entertaining the orchestra’s contradictory vision?

The City of Sarasota has an obligation to respect their citizens’ park plan and respect the Payne family’s gift to preserve the community open space of Payne Park and must cease negotiating with Sarasota Orchestra to dismantle it.

Gayle Reynolds
Co-Chair, Conservation Committee
Manatee-Sarasota Sierra Club