County lays out plans to attract rowing championships
SUN FILE PHOTO
Sarasota Sculler Sean Murphy of Osprey takes a break as a volunteer for the Florida Intercollegiate in 2010 as four-person teams ready for their start at Nathan Benderson Park in Sarasota. Officials have plans to make it a Class A rowing facility.
SUN FILE PHOTO
Sarasota Sculler Sean Murphy of Osprey takes a break as a volunteer for the Florida Intercollegiate in 2010 as four-person teams ready for their start at Nathan Benderson Park in Sarasota. Officials have plans to make it a Class A rowing facility.
SARASOTA COUNTY — County officials outlined their plans to try to lure the 2017 World Rowing Championships — and the millions of dollars it would pump into the area’s economy — this week to the county’s Tourism Development Council.
The event would be held at the $55 million, 2,000-meter rowing course that is under construction in Nathan Benderson Park in Sarasota. Benderson Development Co. executive director Paul Blackketter, whose company is overseeing the entire rowing center project and is helping lead the area’s bid for the event, said the county is facing some competition from at least two other cities, in Europe. The bid is exclusive from the United States and is backed by U.S. Rowing, the sport’s sanctioning body in this country.
