Siesta Key Beach gets a 21.5 million dollar renovation

 

Sarasota County unveils improvements to Siesta Key Public Beach on Tuesday with the edition of the west concession stand, lifeguard and law enforcement stations and renovations to the historic pavilion. The grand opening is  was held on  Saturday, Feb. 20 , 2016.  Sarasota County  spent  $21.5 million  dollars on the Siesta Key beach restoration project on south Siesta Key that added some 690,000 cubic yards of sand and 1.1 acres of dune vegetation to protect one of America’s most popular shorelines from the steady threat of erosion.

“We’ve made the best beach in America even better,” said Carolyn Brown, parks and recreation director for Sarasota County. “This is a legacy project. This is one of the biggest and most significant things we’ve done.”

In 2011, Stephen Leatherman — “Dr. Beach” — made Siesta No. 1 on his annual list of America’s best beaches. The publicity coup of this ranking helped convince Sarasota County to add parking and update facilities on Siesta Key.

More than 1,300 trees were planted at Siesta Beach. These include sabal palms, buttonwood and sea grapes.“All of them are native except for the 12 coconut palms next to the old pavilion,” said Bill Waddill, landscape architect for Kimley-Horn and Associates. “They were part of the original look for the pavilion and we wanted to preserve that.”