by TRC_Admin | Feb 28, 2021 | Scenic Intersections - Art, Scenic Intersections - Placemaking, Scenic Intersections - Roundabouts
Photo: Nate Ilardi for City of Sarasota
The Jumping Fish sculpture stands 16 ft high by 12 ft wide in the center island of the modern roundabout at Cocoanut Avenue & Palm Avenue. The sculpture was selected from among 140 submissions and is the 84th piece in Sarasota’s Public Art Collection. It was sculpted in 2019 by Jeff Laramore.
“Sarasota, Florida is a city that has long proudly supported the arts.
The city’s vibrant arts scene includes the Ringling College of Art and Design, the famous Ringling Museum, an opera house, a ballet company, and the Sarasota Art Museum. Thanks to visionaries, the City’s Public Art Collection now includes downtown modern roundabouts graced with artworks.
Early on, then Sarasota City Engineer Dennis Daughters, then City Traffic Manager Sam Freija, and current City Engineer Alex Davis Shaw envisioned a downtown made more pedestrian friendly—and even more beautiful—with a collection of modern roundabouts. Today, their vision is coming to fruition.
‘We’re interested in the safety of walkability and connectivity to Sarasota Bay,” Downtown Sarasota Condo Association Transportation Committee Chair and Urban Planning Professor Emeritus at the University of Cincinnati Roger Barry said. “The roundabouts help supply that and appear to be extremely successful. I think we’re kind of proud of the fact Sarasota is an art-focused community and the roundabouts are an expression of that…'”
Five Points Roundabout at Main Street & Pineapple Avenue. Photo: Ken Sides
Embracing Our Differences Roundabout at Main Street & Orange Avenue. Photo: Nate Ilardi for City of Sarasota
Photo: Bravo! Roundabout at Ringling Boulevard & Orange Avenue. Photo: Ken Sides
To help a skeptical public understand what it would get in return for giving up the two travel lanes, Sarasota-based Hoyt Architects Lab created a rendering depicting how different the three intersections could look with marine-themed public art in the roundabout central islands for the Fruitville Road roundabout. Image: Hoyt Architecture Lab.
— Ken Sides, Roads and Bridges
Read entire detailed article in Roads and Bridges
NEW! Scenic Florida’s Section in the Bill Brinton Library devoted to Scenic Intersections
by TRC_Admin | Feb 3, 2021 | Landscaping, Planting, Trees
Photo: Meghan McCarthy, Palm Beach Daily
“Putting on gray work gloves and yellow helmets, students from local elementary schools Thursday morning helped celebrate Florida Arbor Day by planting a kapok tree at Phipps Ocean Park in Palm Beach.
‘This is hard work. But it’s real good to plant a tree,’ said Ryder Lazzaro, a third-grader at Palm Beach Day Academy.
The 13-foot-tall seedling, planted just east of the Little Red Schoolhouse at the park south of Sloane’s Curve, could grow to more than 100 feet tall and live more than 200 years.
The fast-growing trees, like the one on Lake Trail on the grounds of the Royal Poinciana Chapel, are known for luxurious canopies and thick buttress roots.
The Garden Club of Palm Beach organized the annual event, which was smaller this year because of the pandemic, said Garden Club President Mary Pressly.
‘We’re hoping to inspire students to help their community. Planting trees and watching them grow may motivate them to go into fields like conservation and botany,’ said Pressly, who was among about 40 other town officials, club members and students who gathered under cloudy skies for the event.
While the national Arbor Day observance is in April, Florida and other states celebrate the day to reflect their best planting time…”
— Bill DiPaolo, Special to the Daily News
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by TRC_Admin | Feb 3, 2021 | Billboards
Photo: Scenic Florida
The second of three Outfront Media billboards (located along Interstate 95 in Southern Duval County) was dismantled and removed on January 7th as part of a take-down settlement negotiated several years ago between Scenic Florida and Outfront Media.
— Scenic Florida
Learn more about Scenic Florida
by TRC_Admin | Feb 3, 2021 | Billboards
Photo: David Tucker, The Daytona Beach News Journal
“The last of nearly a dozen billboards that Palm Coast developer pledged to remove when he purchased them more than three years ago came tumbling down piece by piece on Monday…
Jim Cullis, president of Grand Living Realty, came out to watch as demolition crews dismantled the over-sized display board just east of the Hammock Dunes Bridge overpass along State Road A1A, also called Ocean Shore Boulevard. He was joined by county officials and members of several local organizations that are dedicated to conserving the natural beauty of the historic scenic roadway.
‘It’s the end of a three-year effort to work with the Friends of A1A and the (Hammock) Conservancy and the county to beautify scenic A1A,’ Cullis said. “We struck this arrangement three years ago, and it’s gone by pretty quickly. There were a total of 11 boards involved in this arrangement, and now they’re all gone.’
The signs were part of a collection of 14 billboards that included three on Interstate 95. Cullis said he bought the boards from a developer in Hammock Dunes for $213,000 in June 2013. Four months later, he sold eight of them to the county for $80,000, and officials demolished two other full-sized billboards on S.R. A1A as part of that deal. He said the Hammock Dunes Association purchased another sign from him and destroyed it last summer.
County officials agreed to allow Cullis to continue leasing the billboards for three years in exchange for him selling them at a cheaper rate. The pact called for him to tear them all down by the end of this month.
The one ripped down Monday was a two-sided display board advertising Coldwell Banker on one side and Bellagio Custom Homes on the other. Cullis said it was among the largest signs in the group and accounted for two billboards coming down because it was double-sided. Cullis said there are now 24 left standing along S.R. A1A, and county officials said the goal is to one day remove them all.
‘It’s a scenic byway, so we’re trying to keep up the way it was,’ said Commissioner Greg Hansen, who was on hand to watch as workers began dismantling the sign Monday. ‘We want it to be as natural as it can be.’
Fellow Commissioner David Sullivan was also on hand and echoed Hansen’s sentiments.
‘The deal is it beautifies the road,’ he said. ‘We don’t have the eye sore, and that’s what we’re trying to do — make A1A as beautiful a road as it can possibly be…’
‘Everybody has wanted this, and Jim (Cullis) has made that possible,’ said Marge Rooyakkers, president of the Hammock Community Association and Hammock Conservancy. ‘All our advertising will be done electronically now. All the millennials and young folk are on their cell phones, all on their computers. They just don’t need this anymore…’
Dennis Clark, a member of Scenic A1A Pride, the Flagler chapter of the Friends of A1A group, estimated the billboards have been a staple on the road for about 30 years.
‘It’s a huge improvement,’ he said. ‘We’ve been working to do this for probably 14, or 15 years. It was finally possible with Jim Cullis allowing us to do it. So this is fantastic as an improvement and a beautification.'”
— Matt Bruce, The Daytona Beach News Journal
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by TRC_Admin | Feb 3, 2021 | Landscaping, Planting, Trees
Photo: Coral Gables Garden Club
“The Coral Gables Garden Club members voted unanimously to dedicate “Project Canopy” to our dear Life Member, Sallye Jude.
The City of Coral Gables honored the Coral Gables Garden Club and Sallye Jude for her environmental work by proclaiming September 22nd, 2020, Project Canopy Day. Sallye, who joined the garden club in 1983, has a long history of promoting environmental causes in South Florida. Sallye is a member of the Sierra Club, a Fellow at Fairchild Botanic Garden, a past Board member of the Fern and Exotic Plant Society, the South Florida Palm Society, and the Tropical Flowering Tree Society. Plus, she has been a major supporter of the Royal Poinciana Fiesta for many years, which celebrates our magnificent Royal Poinciana tree. Her love and interest in trees are well known throughout the South Florida and Coral Gables communities. It is with the deepest admiration that this project is dedicated to her.
She is our “Johnny Appleseed!”
— Coral Gables Garden Club
Visit the Coral Gables Garden Club to learn more about Sallye Jude
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