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Happy Valentine’s Day!
YOU. YOUR NEIGHBORS. YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD.
NEWS
DIVERSIONS
Ocean Properties buys Helmsley Sandcastle. PAGE 3A
OUR TOWN + Nocks celebrate Valentine’s gifts For Eugene and Jessica Nock, of Sleepy Lagoon, there’s a lot to love about the month of February. That’s because their son, Garrett Trumble Nock, was born on Valentine’s Day in 2008. One year and nine days later, his sister, Lauren-Taylor Nock, was born. Now, as Garrett and Lauren-Taylor prepare to turn 6 and 5, respectively, we can see there’s lots to love about both.
FREE • THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2014
NEIGHBORHOOD Christ Church women model clothes to benefit mission. PAGE 5B
Residents create iconic lifestyle in one of the oldest homes in town. INSIDE
shopping destinations
by Kurt Schultheis | Managing Editor
New mall shops for Circle merchants St. Armands BID Chairman Marty Rappaport said Benderson officials are willing to buy Circle merchants out of their leases if they commit to moving to the Mall at University Town Center. The Mall at University Town Center currently consists of mounds of dirt, beams of steel and tons of concrete that are poured at the interchange of University Parkway and Interstate 75. But St. Armands Circle and downtown Sarasota officials
worry that it’s already a threat to their retail destinations miles away. Even though Benderson Development and Taubman Centers don’t expect to complete the 888,000 square-foot, high-end Mall at University Town Center until October, officials say time
is of the essence to preserve their established shopping destinations near the Gulf. That’s because St. Armands Circle Business Improvement District Chairman Marty Rappaport and Ernie Ritz, chairman of Sarasota’s Downtown Improvement District, say that
leasing agents for the mall are actively pursuing their tenants and trying to get them to pack up and head east. “Benderson (leasing agents) has already gone around to St. Armands Circle merchants, and
SEE MALL / PAGE 15A
FANNY’S BIGGEST FANS
Courtesy photos
Lauren-Taylor Nock
Garrett Trumble Nock
+ Better late than never for couple A friend fixed up Howard Temkin and Barbara Koren back in 1975 in Massachusetts. They became friends, went out again in 2001, then officially became a couple in December 2012. Nearly four decades after their first meeting, Temkin is happy he’ll be spending his second Valentine’s Day with Koren and their first Valentine’s Day on Longboat Key. He asked us to help him send a message to his sweetheart on Valentine’s Day, so here it is: “Happy Valentine’s Day. Looking forward to many more. I love you.” Howard
SEE OT / PAGE 18A
Kelsey Grau
Commissioner Phill Younger and his mother-in-law, Blanca DiCecco, cheer on model Fanny Younger after her walk down the runway at the Longboat Key Garden Club’s Taste of the Keys and Fashion Show Feb. 5 at the Longboat Key Club’s Harbourside Dining Room. For more photos from the fashion show, see pages 1B and 2B.
beaches
by Robin Hartill | News Editor
Town focuses on two sand structures The town can’t build a groin on Beer Can Island — and that’s fine by town officials, who never wanted to build a third sand-holding structure in Longboat Pass. It was always the town’s intent to build two sand-holding groin structures on the north end of the Key. That’s why the settlement the town reached last month with Joe McClash and the ManateeSarasota Sierra Club is advantageous, according to town offi-
cials. As part of the settlement, the town agreed not to build a long terminal groin made out of rocks that would have attached to Beer Can Island and jutted out into Longboat Pass. In return, McClash and the Sierra Club won’t object to the
town’s plan to permit two permeable adjustable groins made out of concrete near Longbeach and 360 North condominiums. And that’s what the town planned to build all along. When town staff began the permitting process more than two years ago, the Department
of Environmental Protection’s stance was that the town had to build the terminal groin on Beer Can Island along with the other two groins. But neither town staff, nor the Longboat Key Town Commis-
SEE SAND / PAGE 2A
INDEX Calendar............ 16A Classifieds......... 17B
Cops Corner..........9A Crossword.......... 16B
Neighborhood...... 1B Opinion.................8A
Real Estate........ 14B Weather............. 16B
Vol. 36, No. 28 | Three sections YourObserver.com