Sarasota County is a county located in Southwest Florida. At the 2020 US census, the population was 434,006. Its county seat is Sarasota and its largest city is North Port. Sarasota County is part of the North Port–Bradenton–Sarasota, FL metropolitan statistical area. The county includes barriers islands with beaches and beach communities. It is home to colleges, a network of libraries, and various parks and preserves. Hurricanes Helene and Milton hit the county in 2024.
Bradenton is a city in and the county seat of Manatee County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city's population is 55,698, up from 49,546 at the 2010 census. It is a principal city in the North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area. Downtown Bradenton is along the Manatee River and includes the Bradenton Riverwalk. Downtown Bradenton is also home to the Bishop Museum of Science and Nature.
Sarasota is a city in and the county seat of Sarasota County, Florida, United States. It is located in Southwest Florida, the southern end of the Greater Tampa Bay Area, and north of Fort Myers and Punta Gorda. Its official limits include Sarasota Bay and several barrier islands between the bay and the Gulf of Mexico. Sarasota is a principal city of the North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area. According to the 2020 U.S. census, Sarasota had a population of 54,842, up from 51,917 at the 2010 census.
Sarasota–Bradenton International Airport is a public use international airport located within three jurisdictions: Sarasota County, the city limits of Sarasota, and Manatee County, all in the U.S. state of Florida. Owned by the Sarasota Manatee Airport Authority, it is 3 miles (4.8 km) north of Downtown Sarasota and 6 miles (9.7 km) south of Bradenton.
New College of Florida is a public liberal arts college in Sarasota, Florida. The college is a member of the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges. New College has the smallest student enrollment in the State University System of Florida with 689 students as of 2022. Founded in 1960, it opened in 1964 and was a private college. It ran into financial difficulty in the 1970s and was merged into the University of South Florida. In 2001, it became an autonomous college within the State University System of Florida.
The Sunshine Skyway Bridge, officially referred to as the Bob Graham Sunshine Skyway Bridge, is a pair of long beam bridges with a central tall cable-stayed bridge. It spans Lower Tampa Bay to connect Pinellas County to Manatee County. The current Sunshine Skyway opened in 1987 and is the second bridge of that name on the site. It was designed by the Figg & Muller Engineering Group and built by the American Bridge Company. The bridge is considered the flagship bridge of Florida and serves as a gateway to Tampa Bay. The four-lane bridge carries Interstate 275 and U.S. Route 19, passing through Pinellas County, Hillsborough County and Manatee County. It is a toll bridge, with a toll assessed on two-axle vehicles traveling in either direction at a rate of $1.75 cash or $1.16 with the state's SunPass system.
Paul Marvin Rudolph was an American architect and the chair of Yale University's Department of Architecture for six years, known for his use of reinforced concrete and highly complex floor plans. His best-known works include the Boston Government Service Center and the Yale Art and Architecture Building, a spatially-complex Brutalist concrete structure. He is one of the modernist architects considered an early practitioner of the Sarasota School of Architecture.
Sarasota High School is a public high school of the Sarasota County Public Schools in Sarasota, Florida, United States, a city by the Gulf of Mexico. The school colors are black and orange and the mascot is a sailor. The school was segregated and no African Americans allowed to attend until desegregation.
The Sarasota Municipal Auditorium, listed in the National Register as Municipal Auditorium-Recreation Club, is a historic multi-purpose facility built-in 1938. It is located at 801 Tamiami Trail North and is owned/operated by the municipal government of Sarasota, Florida. The auditorium has 10,000 square feet (930 m2) of exhibit space on its main floor and also contains an Art Deco style stage measuring 1,500 square feet (140 m2).
The Military Heritage Museum is a military museum in Punta Gorda, Florida.
Friends of Seagate Inc. was founded in the late 1980s by Kafi Benz as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in Sarasota, Florida. The historic preservation group lead local efforts protect historic property in the Sarasota-Bradenton area from commercial development. The group later expanded its scope to include environmental conservation. Its most notable project was the preservation of Seagate, the former home of Cincinnati, Ohio, industrialist Powel Crosley Jr. and his wife, Gwendolyn, and its later owners, Mabel and Freeman Horton. In 2002 the organization tried to secure Rus-in- Ur'be, an undeveloped parcel of land in the center of the Indian Beach Sapphire Shores neighborhood, as a local park; however, as of 2014, real estate developers intend to build condominium units at the site.
DeSoto Square Mall was an enclosed shopping mall serving Bradenton, Florida, United States. It was built in 1973 and permanently closed on April 30, 2021. One lone anchor store, Hudson's Furniture, remains open.
Thomas Reed Martin was an architect who was brought to Florida by one of its major developers during the turn of the twentieth century. He designed some 500 residences and various public and private buildings in Sarasota, as well as commercial buildings. His Florida buildings are located from Tampa to Fort Myers with many in Nokomis.
Harvard Jolly is a St. Petersburg, Florida based architectural firm known for its work on school, healthcare and public buildings. It was founded as a solo practice in 1938 by William B. Harvard Sr. With the addition of Blanchard E. Jolly as partner, the firm became Harvard Jolly in 1961. In the 1970s Enrique M. Marcet, R. John Clees, John Toppe, and William B. Harvard Jr. joined the firm, which became known as Harvard Jolly Clees Toppe Architecture for some time. Harvard Jolly has offices in St. Petersburg, West Palm Beach, Tampa, Sarasota, Jacksonville, Tallahassee, Orlando, and Ft. Myers.
The Selby Public Library was the first library in Sarasota County, Florida and was established in 1907. The current building is the largest public library in Sarasota County and serves the downtown district of Sarasota, Florida.
CoolToday Park is a ballpark in North Port, Florida, located in the southern portion of Sarasota County, 35 miles (56 km) south of Sarasota, Florida. It is the spring training home of the Atlanta Braves of Major League Baseball. The ballpark opened on March 24, 2019, with the Braves' 4–2 win over the Tampa Bay Rays.
The Chidsey Library or Chidsey Building is a historic building located in Sarasota, Florida at 701 North Tamiami Trail. The building was home to the city's first public library from 1941 to 1976.
The Sarasota County Library System is the public library system that serves Sarasota County in the U.S. state of Florida. It consists of 10 locations, including a central library located in the city of Sarasota.
Guy Wesley Peterson is an American architect based in Sarasota, Florida. He has designed more than 200 structures in southwest Florida, including private and public works. Peterson was an adjunct professor of architecture at the University of Florida, College of Design, Construction and Planning, and the author of Naked: The Architecture of Guy Peterson.
