Nathan Benderson Park in Sarasota County, Florida

Photograph: Nathan Benderson Park - Finish Tower.jpg by Architecttype · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Restored from the credited Wikimedia Commons file, normalized to the consistent attraction-card frame and converted to WebP by 1stFlorida.com. Portrait originals retain their complete composition over a softly blurred extension of the same photograph.

Sarasota County attraction

Nathan Benderson Park

Sarasota County · Gulf Coast

Six hundred acres around a 400-acre lake shaped into a 2,000-meter rowing course, which hosted the world championships in 2017.

ABOUT THIS PLACE

Sarasota County owns the park, which sits west of Interstate 75 off North Cattlemen Road. It covers 600 acres and the lake in the middle of it, a 400-acre artificial one, was lengthened and deepened in 2013 with an island built as an event center and a return channel cut around it so that boats warming up do not cross the racing lanes. That work turned it into a full 2,000-meter course to international standard. The park opened to the public in 2014 and held the World Rowing Championships in 2017, a bid the county won with federal support. Regattas fill the calendar through the winter and spring. For everyone else there are 3.4 miles of paved and shell trail running alongside the water for walking, running and cycling, along with fishing, kayaking, canoeing and sailing, and a program of festivals and community events. Mote SEA opened on the same campus in 2025

GETTING THERE

Get Directions ↗Official Website ↗

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