A long-quiet stretch of South Tamiami Trail is shifting. On an 18.42-acre parcel just west of Palmer Ranch, Arlington Properties and Battery Global Advisors have begun work on a 325-unit apartment community called Tapestry Sarasota. The land at 7914 S. Tamiami Trail sold for $18.42 million, according to county property records. The seller, St. Petersburg developer Jeff Craft, paid $4.6 million for it in 2019 before assembling a broader vision for the site. (Fun fact: the late Chinese scholar Elling O. Eide sold the larger parcel for almost $28 million in 2005; the research center named for him is located nearby at 8000 S. Tamiami Trail.)

For Casey Babb, executive vice president at Colliers, the sale marks the end of a long loop. “For me, it’s a labor of love,” he says. Babb, who runs Colliers’ Florida multifamily practice group, has been tied to the property’s trajectory since 2017. The owners, he says, originally secured the land back in 2007 for a mixed-use project with waterfront condos, only to see it shelved during the recession. They later reacquired the front acreage while retaining the 13.7-acre waterfront portion, then initiated what Babb called an “arduous” rezoning process with Sarasota County. Although it’s been slowing down compared to the feverish post-pandemic draw the area saw, “it’s a growing metro,” Babb says. “Apartments are needed and that will continue, and the population growth is strong.”

Tapestry Sarasota arrives in a part of the county that hasn’t seen new apartments in decades. “If you look at where development has happened, it’s mostly up and down the I-75 corridor five to seven miles away from this site,” Babb says. “There’s not been anything within that three-mile radius in over 25 years.” Downtown Sarasota has added thousands of units, and Palmer Ranch continues to become more dense, but this specific pocket of U.S. 41 has remained largely untouched.

That isolation turned into an opportunity. “Because of all the supply, a place like this that has not a lot of competition—we think it’s an underserved submarket,” Babb says. The project is expected to deliver in early 2027, with final completion in early 2028. It will include one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments and amenities such as resort-style pools, a wellness and fitness center, co-working spaces, walking trails and pet-friendly programming.

The timing, though, intersects with a moment of volatility in the rental market. Sarasota currently leads the nation in rent concessions, with discounts approaching two months free in some instances. Nationally, the average is about five weeks of free renet—already the highest since the Great Recession—with Florida metros occupying nearly half of the top 20 spots.

Babb says the softening is a reaction to post-pandemic supply surges. “Post-Covid, the market in the Sun Belt got hit with historic waves of supply, especially in Florida,” he says. “Rents in Sarasota have dropped 15 percent on a net-effective basis in the last few years. They came up so hard and fast. So now it’s coming down to earth.” But he believes the imbalance is temporary. “It’s going to take 30 months,” he says. “We’ll be in a healthy apartment market where rents go back up, and lots of developers are betting on this.”

Projected pricing for Tapestry Sarasota, he says, is “around $2.25 a square foot a month… low to mid-$2,000s.” The renter base, he adds, won’t mirror the traditional urban profile. He predicts “a combo of white-collar [people] working in finance to real estate or health care and tech,” he says, but also a growing cohort of older residents “test-driving” renting after selling larger homes—especially those coming off those closer to the water post Hurricanes Helene and Milton. “It’s like living in a hotel,” he says. “You can travel, lock your door and leave. And if you don’t like it, you pick up and move.”

Meanwhile, developer Craft is holding on to the 13-acre waterfront parcel behind the apartments, where he's planning a 57-unit luxury townhome community set on a bluff overlooking Little Sarasota Bay. Those residences, Babb says, will be gated and priced at “$1.5 million and up.” They will feature private garages, rooftop terraces, and a shared dock with slips and launch areas for boats, jet skis and paddleboards. Construction is expected to trail the apartments' timeline, but both will eventually share a connected entrance. “It’ll be a grand entrance into the community,” Babb says.

For Babb, the transaction signals something broader about the U.S. 41 corridor’s evolution. “We’re seeing renters and increased demand—this is why developers continue to build, because there’s a need,” he says. With infill sites shrinking in Tampa Bay and other major Florida metros, he sees Sarasota’s SouthCcounty corridor becoming a new focus for institutional and regional developers.

“The outlook is positive,” he says.