Mira Mar Plaza

2024 Six to Save

UPDATE:

Mira Mar Plaza Cleared Another Important Hurdle and Secures the Zoning Change Needed to Preserve the Historic Mira Mar. Congratulations To Seaward Development and the City of Sarasota! Learn more.

The Mira Mar Plaza was built in record time in 1922, at the start of ‘Florida Fever’ tourist boom. The largest apartment building that Sarasota had yet seen, it spans from 44 to 71 S. Palm Avenue with a hotel and auditorium constructed on site shortly after, Mira Mar signaled to the world that this piece of paradise had risen to ‘resort status.’

Andrew McAnsh was the entrepreneur behind the endeavor, with Sarasota’s Thomas Reed Martin as associate architect for William G. Kreig, J.T. and M.D. Hetherington of Chicago, and builder O. S. Ellis. Built in the “Spanish-Italian style” known today as Mediterranean Revival, the apartments rested on 18 ground floor commercial stores which lined the ten foot sidewalk. The apartment building, which remains after the original hotel building was demolished in 1982, is the oldest part of the complex McAnsh envisioned, and has remained in continued use throughout the decades.

Purchased in 2022 by Seaward Development, the future of the Mira Mar is currently cautiously optimistic. Years of large scale adjacent construction have hastened the work of the termites, making its restoration a complex and financially demanding endeavor, which Seaward has publicly committed to as part of their further development of residential towers on the site. Given the variances required for that project to proceed and generate sufficient income to offset the expensive and laborious restoration, the Mira Mar will need continuing community support to ensure the project is successful.​