Before Longboat Key Votes, a Look at What Town Center Green Already Holds

Over the last twelve years, the lawn behind Publix on Bay Isles Road has grown into something closer to a town square, and a good part of what happens there has been planned around a building that does not exist yet. The Longboat Key Town Commission takes its final vote on the Town Center Green library on Monday, Nov. 2. Statewide voters decide Amendment 3 the next day, and Sarasota County has said the library depends on that result.

The Green has been put together slowly, with each new piece making room for the next. The library is the piece everything else has been waiting on. Some of the Green's uses have already moved aside for it, even though nobody can yet promise it will be built.

A Lawn Assembled One Parcel at a Time

The Green started as a real estate decision, a history Your Observer laid out in 2022. In March 2014 the town approved buying a 2.8-acre parcel behind Publix. In January 2017 it voted to buy the neighboring Amore property, which made the Town Center site bigger. The town cleared the 4.8-acre site in April 2020. Phase one was finished that August, with a grass field, shell paths, sidewalks and an upgraded lot where the old restaurant used to park its customers.

Phase two added the Karon Family Pavilion, along with benches, landscaping and the rubber-surfaced oval walking path that now loops the lawn. When the pavilion was unveiled in 2023, the Sarasota Orchestra performed, Your Observer reported.

That sequence explains why the library vote matters so much to the Green. The parcels, the paths and the pavilion were all laid out with a permanent building expected on the south end. Sarasota County and Longboat Key have been working toward a county library since 2021. In 2023 a Sarasota County Libraries announcement described a permanent library as a top priority for the Longboat Key community and said the project would include space for community events.

The Cottage That Opened Its Doors Again This Month

The oldest building on the Green went back into regular use this October. The Longboat Key Historical Society operates out of a small cottage that was built in 1926 as the laundry room of the Whitney Beach Resort. It was moved to the Green in January 2021. Over the summer the doors stayed shut, even though a sign listed hours of Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., and rumors started that the society had folded. Society President Michael Drake told Your Observer what had actually happened:

"There was a sign with my name and phone number that said we were closed for the summer but open for appointments. One way or another, that sign disappeared."

Since October the society has been running normally again. Inside are photos from the 1953 fish fry, images the society calls the earliest known photographs of Longboat Key, taken between 1914 and 1920, and bound copies of the Anna Maria Islander from 1963 to 1976. The shelves also hold Ralph Hunter's "From Calusas to Condominiums" and Lora Colvin Whitney's "Hail This Feisty Village!" Sheila Loccisano, who runs the "Follow Me to Longboat Key" Instagram page, had been stopping by every Thursday at noon and filming the locked door. The week the doors finally opened, her video showed them open. She told the Observer she knows at least 10 people willing to volunteer.

The cottage also matters to the library debate. The library is planned for the south end of the Green, and a town official said it would not displace the Historical Society cottage. Both buildings are meant to share the lawn.

What the Building Would Add

The 2026 proposal is an 11,324-square-foot building. It includes a community room for 200 people, a covered terrace that faces the Green, and large "sitting steps" leading down toward the lawn. In the 2023 project account, Borrelli + Partners was named as architect and Jon F. Swift Construction as construction manager. Sarasota County would operate and staff the library. The county's concept sheet lists a core collection, technology, meeting rooms, a reading room, two conference rooms, and programs for adults and children.

Residents raised money to add the bigger event space to the design. The town and the Longboat Key Foundation passed their $3 million goal and brought in $3.8 million. Vern and Sandy Buchanan were the $1 million lead donors, and the naming agreement puts their name on the library for the building's useful life. The Observer describes the library as a $13.5 million project that includes $11 million in Sarasota County funding, with $1 million for design and $10 million for construction.

A bigger room raised the obvious question about parking, and the commission spent much of its Oct. 5 first approval on it. Your Observer's account gives the numbers. For everyday library use, the 78 existing spaces east of the Green are twice the 39 that town code requires. For events drawing a few hundred people, organizers could arrange to use neighboring lots at the Mediterranean Plaza, the post office, nearby churches, banks and the tennis center. That adds 603 spaces with the owners' permission, or 681 counting the Green's own lot. Anything larger would need a parking and transportation plan before the town permits it. Planning, Zoning and Building Director Allen Parsons used a Bruce Springsteen concert as his example of that kind of event.

The difference between 78 and 681 spaces tells you what the town expects from the building. It is sized for a quiet library most days and a regular events venue on evenings and weekends, sharing parking with the Bay Isles Road businesses around it.

The Market That Stepped Aside Early

The library has already changed the Green's calendar. The Market on Longboat Key had set up on the Green every season since 2022. It did not run in 2025-26. Organizer Nancy Ambrose told Your Observer that she had expected no market that year because of library construction. When she learned over the summer that it could go ahead after all, many vendors had already signed with other markets, and she could not justify paying a full season of permits and liability insurance.

In that same report, Assistant Town Manager Isaac Brownman said "the event may revive after the library and community hall project comes to fruition in the future," and that any return would come after construction. So the Green has already lost one season of a market while waiting on a building that still faces two votes.

Two Days, Two Decisions

On Nov. 2 the Town Commission holds the second reading and final public hearing on the library site and development plans, according to the town's Oct. 5 agenda. The next morning, Florida voters decide Amendment 3.

The Florida Department of State's summary explains what the amendment would do:

• Raise the homestead exemption for non-school property taxes to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028, then adjust it for inflation after that
• Lower the annual cap on assessment increases for non-homestead property from 10% to 5%
• Let people who were not Florida residents on Dec. 31, 2026 claim the existing homestead exemption, with the increased exemption starting in their fifth year of exemption
• Limit how counties and cities can use property-tax revenue

Sarasota County's Amendment 3 page says the measure could cut local-government revenue without replacing it. The county also says it does not support or oppose the amendment. At the Sept. 14 Town Commission meeting, Brownman described the county's position on the library directly. "The county has made it very clear because of the magnitude of the impacts of Amendment 3 they will not be constructing a library on Longboat Key at this time if Amendment 3 passes," he said, as Your Observer reported.

Until the vote, the county is moving forward with design, permitting and the land-use amendment. Howard Tipton, who was town manager at the time, said groundbreaking is scheduled for March. The county has already received $1.6 million of the money residents raised. Tipton said that if the amendment passes, "then we'll have to figure out how to refund the money that's been raised." Longboat Library, the independent, volunteer-run library on the key, is a separate operation. A 2017 Your Observer profile traced it to 1957, placed it on Bay Isles Road since 1972, and noted it was not part of the county system.

This summary of a ballot measure is general information, not tax or legal advice. If you want to know how Amendment 3 would affect your own property, ask a tax professional or the county property appraiser.

On the Green Between Now and Then

The Green is open and in use while the votes play out. Here is what's already scheduled:

• Historical Society cottage. It is open again for the season. The society is asking for volunteers, artifacts and donations, starting with a new front door and display cases.
• Nov. 2 Town Commission hearing. This is the final public hearing on the library plans.
• Light Up Longboat, Saturday, Nov. 21. The town's 2026 calendar puts it on Town Center Green with vendors, live music, food trucks, a tree lighting and Santa. The Longboat Key Chamber lists it from 5 to 7 p.m.

Light Up Longboat comes 18 days after the election. By then the south end of the lawn will either be headed toward a March groundbreaking or be on hold, with the county's construction paused.

If you're wondering what the library decision could mean for your street, your building or the Bay Isles area around the Green, the Argelia Vidal team will gladly walk you through what we're seeing across the beaches once the November votes are in. Let's Connect.