thought we would talk some about all the exciting things happening out it saying are millions for those of you who haven't been out there recently you were going to be building a parking garage if you haven't heard about that among other things so welcome diane i thank you thank you for taking the time to be here with me today and i really have been going out to say in armand's for years and years and years as probably most of the watching this now have but i'm sure that there are lots of things that you can tell us about that we probably don't know about say an arm and circle ok you know it's an interesting thing one of the things that people always ask and he was a he was a homesteader who fish and fish out on the island and he came he was only there for a year and he sold it and the name stuck and somewhere over the history and are was a and of course i think most people realize that our legacy is john right like yes you know he's our he's our founder and and of the circle although i think probably there are a lot of people you know because we have so many new people and sure the city use saying arms or use or so to as his winter residence and so john ringling also wanted to keep mabel home from shopping so he had decided that he would create this vision to create this area that was all shopping and dining and about it by homes and it was called harding estates and in one nine hundred twenty six john ringling opened up saying armand circle and actually it was his elephants that helped build the bridge to come across actually john wranglings office was inside cafe the rope really really so but then the the depression hit and the stock market crash and saner moments lay dormant for about forty years and then in the sixty's it started to build itself back up again and you know now it is what it is it's the jewel of sarasota it really is it really is it's you know it's a destination when you come to sarasota just one of these can't miss places you have to go there and the seattle and the way he laid it out i mean just realize you know a beautiful layout to put it in also a circle do you know the history of how he because you know that seems to me that that was kind of either forward thinking very different rather than laying out a just a regular grid that he he put it in a circle shape i'm not exactly sure why the plat of the land is the way it is i envisioned having that park in the center of this so they would have concerts and no place for the people to come because it was so close to the beach but why there was laid out the way it is i you know asked me don't know i know when we did our seventy fifth anniversary in two thousand and one there is a lot of fabulous historical photos that we were able to get what the circle look like back then and a lot of the statuary that was out on the circuit was all john remains that was it was his artwork that he put out circle to say norman circle very very close yet it is really is it's a magic it's a magical place i think some of my favorite times to be out on the circle is to walk really in the morning when it's so quiet  and because it's so beautiful the landscaping is beautiful and the other favorite time for me is be up there at night with the with the stars and in the is just it you can't i've always said this with all the development has tak place over the eighteen years i've been lucky to be the executive director saying arms seen a lot of great areas open up like lakewood ranch and you know a few other places and they've always said well you know diane aren't you afraid that you know that's that's going to take away from sa minds and i never have that because you can't recreate what scene armin's is you know we have you know we're a block away from the gulf of mexico and you have the history and you have the beautiful homes and it's you know it's it reminds me a lot of europe you know when you walk around it's just me that european feeling so it's very unique and special place and i think you're absolutely right because it does it does have that feel and and i agree with you i love the lights at night and just it amazing businesses out there too i mean we really really do i mean our restaurants are so our top notch restaurants amazingly tailors you know one of a kind and i think that's what's wonderful we do have a few of the corporate stores but a lot of them are individual you know if you're looking for a gift or something yourself that you aren't going to see anywhere else exactly you know it's it's definitely the the place to go so tell me a little bit about the center of the circle association so what do you all do for is that for the residents the merchants so many about we primarily are the marketing and promotion vehicle for saying arm a circle but we also as you know we are the organization that interfaces with the government on behalf of our businesses we work with the city commission and we work with everybody in the city in the county and we produce about twelve to fourteen special events per year which are i think pretty pretty special events and then we basically the voice for all of the merchants what we do have is we have the scenery's resins societally which i know you're aware of as well as the business improvement district which represents the landowners and so we have an organization called the alamar and the actually the city has used us as a model for various groups to learn from because it's that all of the stakeholders get together and everything that takes place and circle we discuss to make sure that we're all on the same page with things  seen on with my two years on on the commission is as i've seen a really good cooperation between the merchants and the residents and the landowners and really working towards making things happen out there which master plan and we did the master plan in two thousand and five and one of the things which was no surprise to us is that for the size of our retail square foot footprint we were about twelve hundred parking spaces short for what we have there and so from that grew the parking feasibility study you know which as we all know he's a bill the studies have to be done when you move forward with projects in there and the residents this was all part of discussion at the elem are for a number of looked at as you know we have two parking lots out there and the the one parking lot that everybody agreed to residents merchants and landowners to building a parking garage was the i call it the the adams parking lot of the columbia parking lot which is on adams drive and so that's where our new project will go the other thing that we have that is we know a huge concern when people come to say an arm and circle are the lack of public restrooms and so with this parking garage we will also have public restrooms in the parking garage so it serves as serves of something that is greatly needed by by the community and the other thing that's an exciting project that's all part of this is that the power lines will be buried coming from the mainland down the quay we also will have grand entryways coming from longboat key and coming from sarasota so it's like you've arrived it's a garmin circle so that will be absolutely beautiful and then side project to this is to public restrooms we feel because of the size of the circle aren't enough and so hopefully within the next six to twelve months thank you to the commission for your support we will be installing two other public restrooms on the circle so once all of this is done this will be such an amazing amenity for saying armas because right now we are considered one of the top five shopping destinations in the country and we know the reason why we're not number one is because there's a challenge with parking and there's a challenge with public restrooms because we see it on trip advisor all the time we get a lot of positive ok and once that is completed there's no question a my up mind that sane arms will move up to new up to number one so it's a very project i think it's a beautiful garage and the design is beautiful i think kimberly horne insults just architects have done a great job being sensitive to the neighborhood and their design there are some elements which i had shared with you earlier  most women are very uncomfortable and parking garages and so they've taken that into consideration and so there is outside stairway that comes down the side which i think architecturally is beautiful and so women will be of feel very safe when they come out of the parking garage or when they go back into the parking garage plus the landscaping is absolutely beautiful fitting in with the neighborhood i think they have done a really good job to be sensitive to the entire neighborhood and you know and to make it just beautiful for everybody who goes to visit because we didn't want to parking garage that was going to look look like a like a harbinger of a visionary structure right exactly and i think they've accomplished that and so i think it had to  for the hybrid vehicles which i think will now hybrid the electrical electric vehicles i'm not a car person but then they'll also be places for bicycles they'll be places for motorcycles you know again it's such a beautiful it's such a beautiful garage it truly is a beautiful ride and way finding one of the other things that's part of this project is the way finding and so it explain what what we are ironing is what is going to be this sign here so it's easy to find your way around when you come on to the circle will be driving all over the place trying to find out where the parking garage is and one thing that will happen is there will be a designated right turn lane coming from john ringling boulevard where the church is on the side of the chair where the church is now so people can just get right off the circle go right to the parking garage they don't have to drive around get stuck in the traffic or whatever so i think in the end valet parking will move over there so that would be much safer for valet parking so there are so many positive to this this project and work stream we excited about and obviously we were excited about it because as you know this parking garage is a little bit different because the merchants in the landowners agreed to tax and our landowners have to this to this project well i think the other her commitment they made which also was so what unusual is they came to us and also said once the parking garage is completed in order to help pay the cost of this parking garage it is we're going to have parking on the circle itself so they're still going to be lots of free parking in the us and and in the in the whole area by in order to get the prime spot on the circle here you know what you're going to have to pay to do that and i think that will probably help cut down on so much circling the sort of all trying to look and look for parking because people are going to be diverted off right first to go into the parking garage and i you know and and i think that was also a positive step on behalf of the merchants to say we're going to do this because we believe and you know getting this parking garage it was a good public private partnership well and you know in sarasota has grown tremendous in all the years that i've been here it's certainly not the size city that it was when i first came and there are very few cities that i know that you can go to where there are no parking meters people are used to paying for parking and i think people are willing to pay to park so that they can get clo e and those people who want to stay all day long can go into the parking garage so you know i think i think in the end i think this is a change is always painful yes it's always painful it's going to be us a little bit as a sho going to be key and where we are going to really make sure that that they are because i think of if they're not you know i don't i would be annoyed and i'm sure everybody else you know you want something that's easy to figure the one one of the free spaces and you just have to walk a little more that's what i said i think the other thing that will be great about this parking garage and they're looking at that system right now they haven't haven't selected the system but it will tell you as you come into the parking garage where there are free spaces so you're not passive circling around the parking garage either so you know it's it's exciting i was called moving into the twenty first century which i think we all need to do you know but like i said i think most people except for a shopping mall and that's not you know that's not the same thing i think most people are used to paying for a parking meter well i mean of air to shopping mall people up somebody is paying for the parking and it's the merchants that are paying for the parking because they're paying for that in their rent you know it's it's not free anywhere because there's there is a call someone's been something someone is paying for and how many people would you say  if you have an idea about this percentage of the people who come to the circle are visitors as opposed to local residents you know that's an interesting question that depends upon the time the year we know that in season mostly it's it's tourists that come to the store for seasonals are snowbirds that are bringing their their gas to the circle locals come to the circle when it's out of season you know as you know that's when we can get reservations in restaurants and you know those sorts of things so you know it's it's different you know it's different the locals start coming out usually beginning of june and because they can come back out here you do know that in the summer thanks slow down and i mean years ago when i lived here in the late seventy's i mean so many places just actually closed up we don't have you know we don't have that any we're a much bigger city than it was then but in the summer there were a lot of places you couldn't even go because it was that slow and the difference in the population was was so huge and he you know and some other areas of the state that are they don't have that so they don't realize that it makes a huge difference here is what i think some of our challenges in the future you know and but these are challenge it's for our city because we are growing and have grown quite a bit is traffic yes and you know solving the traffic problems that we have and as we all know one of the biggest concerns is the bridge yes and getting on and off the island so i don't have to go t is taking a look at that right now i'm trying to come up when i know they've got the barrier island study that's that's taking place so you know i really want people to know that we are so so aware of the problem we've been working on this for a very very long time it's not an easy solution there's you know one way and one way off the island there on an island so right but i know that they're working trying to find a way to move to move that traffic is going to be interesting to see what the solution will wind up being but yeah the city i know the city has been working on this for a long time and looking at solutions to different things and how we how we solve this including you know you know a big one is the bridge and how we get over and over that so i you know i fully expect we'll figure it out and so you know i mean about all we can do is because a lot of the traffic really isn't a result of the city of sarasota we don't have control over the traffic that comes in from pretty much throughout the united states we want to use our cars we don't use public transportation as much as they do in other countries right and you know and that creates the problem too so i know that there are a lot of things that they're looking at with why taxis and water buses and you know other modes of transportation to move people because i know the tourists would be willing to use that especially the europeans yeah you know and we just don't have that in place right now so you know i think there are a lot of exciting things coming down the pipe but you know it's a good problem to have yes it's going to does it all takes time to solve it you know just nothing happens very quickly because just too much planning involved w have about five minutes live so i wanted to talk a little bit about what kind of events do you have out there we've got some great events coming up in october we have our taste of st armand's of that which is an absolutely incredible family about eighteen restaurants that participate we have a silent in a live auction we have in what will tell us a lot about the taste of places they are and yes well it's a ticketed event but once you get inside the gate all of your food all of your drinks are included in your ticket  price and the every event and i don't think people realize this every event that we do once enormous circle benefits a local charity and this event benefits take stock in children and we're very proud that through our special events we have provided so far for thirteen full tuition college scholarships for our local children who have the ability and the aptitude but don't have the financial resources to go to college so that's wonderful th we also have our fright night which is our holly hat and we were proud of that event because that event gives a safe place for families to bring their children to go trick or treating and they don't have to worry and we see adult children out there that a kids it's a it's a really really fun night and then we also have great car shows coming up for aria then we have a jag jaguar event we have a porsche our show and then my one of my favorite events this holiday night and that is when we light  magnificent fifty five foot christmas tree which is the largest tree on the gulf coast of florida and we have we partner with the cuban ballet so they do a pre ceremony ballet performance we are going to sirius at a high school it's a wonderful time to be on  circle it's our kickoff to the holiday season and one thing we do is we do an old fashioned tree lighting as we have a christmas carol sing along and everybody loves to do that so there's a lot of magic that's coming up on the circle and then in the next few months so i twenty amazing restaurants for all different cherries and there's something unseen arma circle for everybody there's a price point for everybody it's not just coming to have an ice cream which is always great to have an ice cream on the circle but there's something on saying i'm a circle for everyone bravery if you enjoy crepes there's that that it was scraper i mean we've we've we've a lot of great things on the circle i think i'm prejudiced but i think we rate things on the circle well for those people who haven't been there are you know i would say to them and i'm sure you would say to them go out absolutely check it out i think you know they'll be just really really pleasantly surprised what's going on look up the events and see morning you can have a cup of coffee you can walk the beach then you can come back and maybe get a manicure here then you can meet your friends for lunch do a little shopping then you can meet for cocktails then you can have a nice dinner you can have a beautiful moonlight stroll on the beach and you never have to move your car it's on saner moments and you can even go dancing there are some you know i think there's there are a couple of places out there that you can that you can actually do that so you can really m do it all make a whole day of it so even if you're a local resident you can pretend you're on vacation for the day and that's what happened really feels like when today when you get away there are so narrow that bridge all your fears go away exactly