What is Sarasota Tomorrow?
Sarasota Tomorrow, an initiative of The Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce, is a collaborative partnership to revitalize Greater Sarasota's economy, protect the environment and enhance the quality of life for all residents. Specifically, Sarasota Tomorrow is a multi-year initiative to reinvigorate the business climate; forge partnerships to focus community time, energy and resources; and provide enhanced business services to help local businesses provide better career opportunities for local residents.
Answering the Challenge
For the most part, Greater Sarasota has been insulated from many of the economic ups and downs of the new century by a consistently high and steadily rising real estate market. But a slowing economy - nationally and locally - threatens our quality of life.
That is why so many dedicated people from our area have come together to plan how to improve our community and Greater Sarasota's overall economy. The result is Sarasota Tomorrow, a strategic, concerted plan to address immediate needs and forge long-term solutions.
Shifting the Burden
For years, Greater Sarasota enjoyed a stable and prosperous community based largely upon a steadily rising real estate market. But as the residential real estate market has slipped, commercial real estate development has been affected by regulatory and tax burdens.
High real estate costs. Transportation and transit problems. Workforce gaps. Business-adverse policies. Add in escalating insurance premiums, and the local economy for Greater Sarasota is sailing into a perfect storm. Working together we hope to reverse this course by creating a future that benefits everyone - residents, businesses and local government.
Creating a Future that Works
In the coming months and years, Sarasota Tomorrow will create an environment that will help improve our local economy and quality of life through:
- Higher-Paying Careers for Residents: We must expand opportunities for residents by helping companies develop and train high-tech workers, promoting environmentally friendly business initiatives and supporting companies that plan to add higher-paying careers locally.
- Support for existing and new businesses: Giving equal attention to both new and existing companies is critical to expanding opportunities for Greater Sarasota's residents and will keep the local economy moving in the right direction
- Promoting "green" businesses: With a range of environmentally friendly workplace options - from companies helping employees work close to home in order to reduce traffic congestion to promoting sustainable building environments - supporting environmentally friendly businesses is a top priority for Sarasota Tomorrow.
- Creating new partnerships: Quality of life starts with good jobs, a healthy local economy and a stable workforce. Sarasota Tomorrow believes that its own community holds the answers for its future through the use of wide-ranging partnerships that include local leaders, neighborhood organizations, government, educational, businesses, civic and environmental groups. Only when all members of a community are represented can wise plans for quality of life emerge.