Sarasota's The Bay Park Wins $400,000 Grant for Storm-Resilient Living Shoreline

A $400,000 grant is supporting construction of a living shoreline along the Sarasota bayfront, a project designed to ease the impact of future storms and clean stormwater before it flows into the bay.

The Community Foundation of Sarasota County awarded the money from its Suncoast Disaster Recovery Fund, part of its Recovery and Resilience Initiative. The recipient is The Bay Park Conservancy, the nonprofit that manages the 53-acre, city-owned park. The award follows a $2 million donation match challenge issued by The Bay and Gulf Coast Community Foundation. The overall project is paid for through a mix of government, donor and foundation grants.

Construction is already underway on a stretch running from north of the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall to the western edge of Centennial Park. Crews are swapping hard seawalls for natural systems, building rain gardens, planting salt-tolerant vegetation suited to Florida, and laying large layers of riprap stone to stop erosion.

Shoreline elevations are being raised from about 5 feet above sea level to as high as 9.5 feet. The higher ground lets storm surge waves run up the slope and then drain back down, while the system filters 4.1 million gallons of stormwater each year.

Diana Shaheen, chief operating officer of the Bay Park Conservancy, said the section, known as the resilient shoreline, matters both for the health of Sarasota Bay and for protecting the city. Runoff from the land passes through a rain garden, plants and trees, she explained, which removes nitrogen and other pollutants before the water reaches the bay.

Organizers describe the project as a "Ribbon of Resilience" that serves as a first line of defense against storm surge and a last filter for nitrogen-laden runoff. The completed Phase 1 upgrades were tested during the 2024 storm season, when Hurricanes Debby, Helene and Milton struck the area. According to the source, those improvements helped keep the bay open to the public, showing how green infrastructure can protect coastal assets and inland properties.

Jessica Muroff, CEO of the Community Foundation of Sarasota County, said the foundation wanted to back the effort because of what the storms revealed. "We learned a lot from those storms about how our shoreline either was damaged or impacted, and what that meant even further inland," she said, adding that the bay has been a role model in applying those lessons. She also noted that preparing for disasters includes building resiliency to prevent the impacts of future events.

Once the work is finished, the park plans to offer accessible public education programs showing homeowners, businesses and local governments how to use natural shoreline techniques on their own land. Leaders hope the project becomes a model for sustainable waterfront design along Florida's coast.

Muroff said the result will offer "improved water quality, improved resilience and a blue and green oasis" on a site that was once mostly a parking lot.