Congressman donates $1M to Longboat library project, gets naming rights

U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Longboat Key, is the sole million-dollar donor to the collaborative project between Sarasota County and Longboat Key to build a combination library and community space on the island municipality's Town Center Geen. 

Announced hours after Sarasota County Commissioners approved an agreement that would allow naming rights for the library to go to the million-dollar donor, the town confirmed Wednesday that donor was Buchanan, who has represented the region in Congress since 2007. That region has shifted over the years, and now includes nearly all of Manatee County, a little bit of southern Hillsborough and none in Sarasota.

Buchanan and his wife, Sandy, have lived in Longboat Key for four decades.

“Sandy and I have been looking for an opportunity to give back to our Longboat community and when this project was presented to us it was a perfect match,'' Buchanan says in a statement. “We are all about community and this space will be a gathering place for Longboat residents and visitors for generations to come.''

Though commissioners unanimously approved the naming-rights agreement, the donor had not been publicly identified until Longboat Key's announcement.

Since 2021, the town and the county have been working together on building a public library on the south end of the Town Center Green. The county is funding the $11 million construction of the library — similar to other community libraries around Sarasota. The town, through private donations of $3.5 million, is funding additional space intended to be used as community space.

That’s where the donors come in. In a letter to the County Commission, Longboat Key Town Manager Howard Tipton wrote the donations come with a series of understandings:

• $1 million (of which there is one donor): would come with the opportunity to name the building for the building’s useful life.
• $500,000 (of which there is one donor): would name both the indoor and outdoor community spaces, referred to as the community hall, also for the space’s useful lives.
• There would be space to recognize other project donors.

Because these requests are atypical of the county’s naming-rights conventions, county commission approval was required.

“Congressman Buchanan has through his public service brought home to our Town and this region hundreds of millions of federal dollars,'' Mayor Ken Schneier says in the statement. "Now he and his wife Sandy are leading our Community Hall campaign with our largest single gift and we received approval today from the Sarasota County Commission to have this wonderful facility named in their honor.''

Tipton says the private donations in the bank now total about $1 million, with between $1.2 million to $1.5 million expected to be deposited by the end of the year. The remainder of the $3.1 million now committed is expected over the next five years, potentially along with the last $400,000 to reach the target of $3.5 million.

“That finish line is right within sight,’’ he says, adding the fundraising campaign that started last August was interrupted by 2024’s hurricanes and didn’t resume until February.

Still, he says, the town is committed to backing the remaining pledges to ensure the project can continue. 

“It’s been an interesting journey so far.’’

The vision for the library is for an educational and leisure resource and also as a gathering spot for classes, events and other activities for which there is no current central location.

“It’s been a long time coming. It’s going to be a wonderful facility,’’ County commissioner Tom Knight says. 

This article originally appeared on sister site YourObserver.com.