Selby Gardens’ Multi-Use Recreational Trail Now Open

December 14, 2022 – Sarasota

The very first element of Phase One of Selby Gardens’ Downtown Sarasota campus Master Plan is officially open to the public: the Multiuse Recreational Trail around the perimeter of our property on Orange Avenue and Mound Street! While it is not quite complete yet, it is now open for all to use and represents just one of several improvements being contributed to the community as part of the project.

The 800-linear-foot Multiuse Recreational Trail, or MURT, gives pedestrians, joggers, cyclists, and others safe and convenient access to our campus on foot or by bike. What’s more, it gives our entire community a multimodal connection to the Sarasota bayfront and beyond. The new pathway significantly widens the previous sidewalk that bordered Selby Gardens’ campus — now running 12 feet wide on Orange Avenue and adding width on Mound Street as well.

Selby Gardens is deeply grateful to their Chair, Marianne McComb, and her husband, Bill, for their important support of Innovating a Greener Future: The Campaign for Selby Gardens, which has made this wonderful element of the Master Plan possible. What a milestone!

The entirety of Phase One of Selby Gardens’ Master Plan is expected to be complete in October 2023 — which is only 11 months from now! In addition to the MURT, Phase One consists of: a new Welcome Center; a state-of-the-art Plant Research Center, with a new herbarium, laboratory, and library; the Living Energy Access Facility (LEAF), which will house parking, a garden-to-plate restaurant, a new gift shop, and a nearly 50,000-square-foot solar array that will make Selby Gardens the first net-positive botanical garden complex in the world; a cutting-edge stormwater-management system; off-site roadway improvements;
and numerous new garden features with more open space.

A Campaign Capping Challenge is now underway, and all new donations are being matched dollar-for-dollar by a group of Selby Gardens’ loyal champions. Double your gift today!

To learn more about naming opportunities, please contact Marlo Turner, Vice President and Chief Advancement Officer, at 941.248.3583 or mturner@selby.org.