Gardens 2 at Waterside Village is a maintenance-free villa and townhome enclave within Waterside Village, a community of roughly 200 residences arranged around lakes and preserves just west of Jacaranda Boulevard and south of East Venice Avenue in east Venice, Sarasota County (Waterside Village Community Association and local community guides, 2026).
Waterside Village is organized as one master community with several sub-associations, including the Gardens groups, the Preserve sections, and Villas 1, each with its own documents, rules, and fees. Residents share resort-style amenities that local guides describe as three heated pools, tennis and pickleball courts, bocce, shuffleboard, and a clubhouse with an active social calendar.
The villas here are typically single-story, attached homes with a garage or carport and a private lanai, built mainly from the late 1990s into the 2000s. Because the exteriors and grounds are maintained by the association, the lifestyle is lock-and-leave, which suits owner-occupants who want low day-to-day upkeep.
The pitch is maintenance-free Venice living close to the beaches and downtown, but the money is made or lost on the sub-association: its dues, its reserve funding, and the parcel's flood zone. Read the Gardens 2 documents and the FEMA flood picture before you price the villa.