► WB Golden Point, DSDG Architects and Gates Construction began development on Evolution, a nine-story luxury condominium located at Golden Gate Point, overlooking the Sarasota Bay.
► The Lakewood Ranch Business Alliance named Kristie Calandro as member services and communication coordinator and Jenna Nelson as membership development representative.
► Children First of Sarasota County received $165,000 in Community Investment Funding, from United Way Suncoast, as part of a $6.05 million overall investment in the community.
► Goodwill Industries Manasota named Donn Githens as president, to succeed longtime leader Bob Rosinsky.
► United Way Suncoast granted $22,000 from its annual community investment funding to the Women’s Resource Center of Manatee for its Project UpLift program.
► Debra Lichter, broker and owner of Sarasota Beach-to-Bay, represented the buyer in the sale of a $7.5 million home at 600 Wedge Lane in the Country Club Shores neighborhood, on Longboat Key.
► Atlas Insurance, in Sarasota, added Mandy Franklin to its team, serving as a commercial producer for the Sarasota-based independent agency.
► The Suncoast Black Arts Collaborative, a Bradenton nonprofit organization that uses the unifying power of the arts to nurture inclusion and diversity across the regional arts and cultural landscape, appointed the organization’s founder, Michéle Des Verney Redwine, as its first CEO.
► Trez Capital, a private real estate lender, provided a $75.2 million loan to help fund construction of SOTA 75, a luxury rental apartment development, in Sarasota.
► University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee campus faculty members Faizan Ali and Zacharias Pieri have been awarded tenure and promoted to associate professor from assistant professor.
► Melissa Larkin-Skinner, regional chief executive officer of Centerstone in Bradenton, will begin a two-year term as board chair for the Florida Behavioral Health Association.
► Laura Lynch, a financial adviser with Edward Jones, joined the Alzheimer’s Association as the 2021 Walk to End Alzheimer’s event chair for Sarasota and Manatee counties.
► Virginia Shearer, currently director of education at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, will be joining the Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College of Art and Design as executive director.
