Mote Science Education Aquarium
A huge project (albeit one outside the city limits) is a new venue designed to replace the current much smaller Mote Aquarium on City Island. (That longtime location will be enhanced as an International Marine Science, Technology & Innovation Park, however.) Ground was broken last November for the new facility, which will occupy 110,000 square feet on 12 acres near I-75 by the University Town Center, expecting to draw more than double the visitors at its current location—up to 650,000-700,000 a year—according to campaign leaders. In fact, it will be built to accommodate up to 1 million visitors a year in times to come.
The new aquarium will be funded by a $130 million campaign that at press time had raised well over $75 million. “It’s a heavy lift for the region,” acknowledges “Oceans for All: Improving Access to Marine Science & Technology” campaign leader Michael Moore. But a mix of funds from county, state, individuals, foundations and corporate sponsorships is expected to provide.
The aquarium design, by Tvsdesign and described as “rising into the sky like ripples in a calm sea,” is already approved, and work has begun on some of the site’s less glamorous aspects, like parking lot improvements and filling part of a central lake with 140,000 cubic tons of dirt. It should be completed in 2023 and ready to open for the 2023-24 season (in order to give Mote’s animal residents transition time), says planning and construction leader Dan Bebak.
According to Moore, Mote SEA will provide an annual economic impact of $250 million, with 260 direct and indirect jobs anticipated. Mote SEA will support plentiful new exhibits, with 1 million gallons total of animal habitat, offering hands-on teaching labs, onsite dive programs, and expanding research facilities greatly. (Great news for penguin lovers: 12 to 16 Humboldt penguins from South America will make their home in the new aquarium.) Moore says he hopes to have all monies committed by the end of 2021.
Sarasota Performing Arts Center/The Bay Park Conservancy
For years now, arts leaders and patrons have been talking about the need to replace the landmark but aging Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall with a facility that is bigger, better, and safer, as the current hall sits on a bayfront site already impacted by sea level rise and bound to be more so. While no one is saying—yet—what will happen with the Van Wezel, the vision for a public-private partnership between the Van Wezel Foundation, the City of Sarasota and the Bay Park Conservancy is growing clearer.
The Bay Park Conservancy, a nonprofit organization responsible for overseeing the transformation of 53 acres of city-owned land along the bayfront into a world-class public park, reached its initial $20 million funding goal in May. (The ultimate goal lies somewhere between $100 and $150 million and is estimated to take between seven to 10 years to reach.) So far, the Mangrove Bayou Walkway and the Fountain Garden have already opened; additional features of Phase 1 underway are the lawns, an outdoor reading room, a new kayak launch, concession pavilion and sunset boardwalk.
Selby Gardens Master Plan
Another multimillion project for the future, Selby’s master plan has attracted more attention than other campaigns, largely because of vocal and prolonged opposition to its expansion from neighbors in its Hudson Bayou neighborhood and beyond. After changes to the original plan, approval was finally received from the city last February, and groundbreaking took place in June. Already, more than 94 percent of the gardens’ $42.5 million Phase 1 fund-raising goal for “Innovating a Greener Future—Living Inspiration for the Living Museum: The Campaign for Selby Gardens” has been committed since launching publicly in 2018.
Gifts in the amount of $1 million each from Jean Weidner Goldstein, the Floyd C. Johnson and Flo Singer Johnson Foundation, Susan and Zuheir Sofia, Audrey Robbins and Harry Leopold and, most recently, from Marcia Jean Taub and Peter Swain, seemed to be announced almost weekly since approval was received, and have helped bring that $42.5 million milestone almost within reach.
Asolo Repertory Theatre Koski Center
When you watch a production on one of Asolo Rep’s stages, chances are you’re not thinking about how it got there—about the costume shops, rehearsal spaces and offices for stage management and guest artists that lie behind the magic. That’s what the expansion of the Koski Center, a cornerstone of Asolo Rep’s strategic plan, “Shaping Our Future,” which kicked off in 2017, is all about.
Work has begun on the Koski Center renovations, with May 2022 as a tentative completion date for the first phase. DiGabriele says it could even be possible to rehearse the last show of the 2021-22 season (the aforementioned Hood) there. “We really need this big new rehearsal hall,” she says—especially those taller members of the cast and crew used to ducking their heads.
The Players Centre for Performing Arts
As employees said a tearful farewell to the Players’ now-demolished old home on North Tamiami Trail and moved into temporary theater space at The Crossings at Siesta Key to present their next couple of seasons, Players CEO William Skaggs and his team for the “Center Stage” campaign remain hard at work on plans for the community theater’s long-awaited new home in Lakewood Ranch’s Waterside Place, with a potential 2023 groundbreaking date.
The description of that new home hasn’t changed too much since its initial conception. Set on 4.5 acres, the facility will house a 400-plus-seat main theater, a 150-200-seat black box theater, a flexible meeting/social space, and the main campus of the Players’ education and training studio, for a total of 60,000-plus square feet overall.
Sarasota Orchestra
No discussion of new artistic spaces could be complete without mentioning the Sarasota Orchestra, which has been hoping for years to build a new home, freeing it from being tied to whatever open performance dates exist at the Van Wezel or the Sarasota Opera House. (Smaller concerts also take place in Holley Hall of the Beatrice Friedman Symphony Center, near the Van Wezel.) But don’t expect to read any breaking news on a music center site here. While locations from Payne Park to the Sarasota Fairgrounds to Lakewood Ranch pop up in public and private speculation (and, in the case of Payne Park, at least, generate outrage among some park users), president and CEO Joe McKenna is mum on where the orchestra might someday set up its music stands.
