Marian Anderson Place, a contaminated 14-acre city-owned property that has sat vacant in Newtown for decades, moved closer to redevelopment on Sept. 8, as City of Sarasota commissioners unanimously advanced plans for health care and light-industrial uses.

The property is on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Way near Emma E. Booker Elementary School and the Betty J. Johnson North Sarasota Public Library, just east of U.S. 301.

The commission approved two related items involving the property at 2046 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Way. One amends the city’s pending sale agreement with Newtown Gateway LLC by adjusting environmental-remediation deadlines. The other, approved on first reading, would rezone approximately 9.22 acres from "commercial residential" to "industrial general."

The rezoning requires a second and final vote and doesn’t approve a site plan.

Newtown Gateway intends to divide the approximately 13.95-acre property into two parcels. A health care clinic and medical-office complex are planned for the northern parcel along Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Way. The larger southern parcel is intended for warehouses, distribution or other light-industrial uses.

Barron Channer, a representative of Newtown Gateway, said during the presentation that the goal for the southern parcel is “to build light industrial that can be job-producing,” but the developer hasn’t yet secured the businesses that would occupy it. Completing the rezoning, he said, would allow Newtown Gateway to proceed with environmental work and “engage in the market to try to find the tenants that we need or the occupiers that we need to bring economic development to the area,” he said. More detailed plans would require a later development application and city review.

The vote marks another step in a redevelopment effort that has stretched across decades. The city acquired the property in 1944 and used it as an unlicensed landfill until the early 1960s. Environmental studies have found debris as deep as 12 feet and contaminants including arsenic, pesticides and lead in the soil, as well as contamination in the groundwater.

In April 2023, commissioners approved an agreement to sell the property to Newtown Gateway for $50,000, with the buyer assuming extensive environmental-assessment, cleanup and redevelopment obligations. The reduced purchase price reflected the cleanup burden. Channer estimated in 2023 that environmental assessment and remediation would cost about $4.5 million. The sale hasn’t yet closed and remains contingent on the buyer meeting requirements in the purchase agreement, including securing state approval of its environmental plans.

Earlier efforts included an unsuccessful Walmart proposal and negotiations with another developer over a possible industrial park, retail hub and vocational-training center.

Yesterday’s discussion showed that the breadth of industrial uses allowed on the property remains sensitive, particularly following controversy surrounding the former U.S. Recycling concrete-crushing operation near Booker High School.

Ron Kashden, chairman of the Coalition of City Neighborhood Associations’ Air Quality Committee, warned commissioners that rezoning property without a site plan creates significant uncertainty. “A rezone without a site plan is the one item that has the most unknowns out of any application that can possibly come before you,” Kashden said.

He urged commissioners to strengthen language intended to protect the site from environmentally harmful industrial operations.

Kashden argued that the restriction proposed before the meeting was narrower than the protection sought by the Planning Board when it unanimously recommended approval in September 2025. The original language prohibited certain recycling and material-crushing activities only when conducted outdoors.

After an extended discussion with the applicant and city attorneys, commissioners revised the condition before voting.

Under the language approved on first reading, the property couldn’t have a primary use involving the processing or recycling of trash or refuse, or the crushing, breaking, grinding or pulverizing of rock, concrete, mortar, asbestos, asphalt or similar materials. Those activities would also be prohibited outdoors, even when they weren’t the property’s primary use.

The distinction would allow a tenant to handle ordinary waste, such as compacting its own cardboard, as an incidental part of operating its business without turning the property into a commercial recycling facility.

Channer accepted the expanded restriction but cautioned against language so broad that an ordinary tenant could face complaints or litigation for handling its own refuse.

“The second I say you can’t do it at all, then, hey, that firm is recycling boxes,” Channer said. “We don’t like them here. And this said they can’t recycle. Now we have litigation.”

Commissioners also raised the possibility that the property could someday be proposed for a data center—an issue that has generated intense debate elsewhere in the region. On Sept. 1, North Port commissioners advanced an 18-month moratorium on new data center applications while that city considers regulations addressing electricity and water consumption, noise, infrastructure and other effects.

City Commissioner Kathy Kelley Ohlrich asked whether Newtown Gateway would formally exclude a data center as the property’s primary use, calling data centers “the topic of the day.”

Channer said the developer has never contemplated one but wasn’t prepared to accept a restriction raised for the first time during the hearing without a clear definition. A warehouse or logistics tenant, he noted, could operate servers or data infrastructure as an ancillary part of its business without functioning primarily as a data center.

“There’s never been any consideration of that, a data center or any other uses,” Channer said.

Deputy City Attorney John Shamsey said Sarasota’s zoning code doesn’t currently define data centers or list them as an allowable use. That doesn’t amount to a permanent prohibition. Sarasota could later define data centers and determine where they may operate, and disputes could arise over whether a particular business meets a future or commonly understood definition.

No data-center restriction was added to the Marian Anderson rezoning.

Commissioner Kyle Scott Battie emphasized the need to prevent harmful uses in a community he described as underserved or economically diminished. Data centers, he said, have become a major point of contention and could conceivably be proposed for a brownfield, making the issue relevant to the discussion.

Mayor Debbie Trice said any restriction must distinguish between a business’s primary purpose and ordinary supporting activities. City Hall itself, she noted, has data equipment and recycles paper and cardboard, but neither makes the property a data center or commercial recycling operation. Trice also expressed confidence that Newtown Gateway didn’t intend to bring polluting businesses onto a site it must first clean up.

The commission ultimately approved the rezoning on first reading with the expanded recycling and material-crushing restriction. The vote was unanimous. The separate amendment to the purchase agreement also passed unanimously.

That amendment gives Newtown Gateway more time to complete required environmental filings with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. The northern parcel is further along in the process: A Brownfield Site Rehabilitation Agreement is already in place, and the developer has submitted a site assessment report. FDEP requested supplemental information, which the amended city agreement allows the buyer to submit by Oct. 31, unless the state sets a different deadline in writing.

For the southern parcel, the developer will have approximately six months following final adoption of the rezoning to secure a separate Brownfield Site Rehabilitation Agreement with FDEP.

The amendment also authorizes the city manager to extend certain environmental deadlines by up to 60 days. If the city manager declines to grant an extension, or if a deadline still isn’t met after an extension, the matter can return to commissioners, who could grant additional time or terminate the sale agreement.

The Planning Board unanimously recommended the industrial rezoning last year, and commissioners changed the southern parcel’s future-land-use designation in February to accommodate industrial development.

If the rezoning receives final approval, Newtown Gateway must still complete the state-supervised environmental process, close on the property and return with specific development plans before construction can begin.