As other major cultural projects soar past milestones, the SPAC has a hard time getting off the ground.
By Derek Gilliam/Suncoast Searchlight
Original Air Date: August 15, 2025
Host: This Monday, the City of Sarasota Commission will hear the final report from the Purple Ribbon Committee. The panel was set up two years ago to make recommendations about the future of the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, and the fate of that historic building is intertwined with plans to build a half-billion dollar Performing Arts Center just a block away. But fundraising for that project is lagging, Suncoast Searchlight found. Derek Gilliam has the details.
Derek Gilliam: Seven years ago, Sarasota unveiled an ambitious plan for its bayfront—a 53-acre waterfront park crowned by a state-of-the-art performing arts center to replace the aging Van Wezel. The new building is to be funded equally by private donations and public dollars.
The announcement came during a boom in other big-ticket cultural projects. Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium was planning a new facility near Interstate 75. Marie Selby Botanical Gardens unveiled a three-phase campus overhaul. And Sarasota Orchestra set its sights on a purpose-built concert hall.
Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium will open its new $130 million facility near Interstate 75 later this year or early next year. Photo: Emily Le Coz, Suncoast Searchlight
Today, three of those visions are well on their way—Mote’s $130 million Science Education Aquarium is nearly complete; Selby, having raised $115 million so far, recently moved into its second phase; and the orchestra has secured a $14 million site and raised $70 million toward its new concert hall.
The performing arts center, by contrast, remains relatively stalled. Its future is tangled in politics, environmental concerns and slow fundraising. The plan calls for two elevated buildings—a 2,700-seat main theater and a smaller multipurpose venue—linked by raised walkways.
The estimated price tag: $407 million.
Rendering of the space between the main theater building (right) and the lobby building of the proposed Sarasota Performing Arts Center. Photo: City of Sarasota
So far, the Sarasota Performing Arts Foundation—formerly the Van Wezel Foundation—has secured just over $23 million in announced donations. That’s barely more than 10% of its needed goal.
At the current fundraising pace, it would take more than six decades to get there.
To understand why, Suncoast Searchlight interviewed more than a dozen people—including foundation staff and current and past board members, as well as leaders of the other three projects. We also reviewed years of financial filings and examined reams of public reports and other records.
Among the findings, the center’s dependence on public funding through the county-city TIF has invited political friction and uncertainty. That’s especially the case with county leaders questioning whether to contribute.
Known as the “Purple Cow” for its distinctive lavender hue, the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall has been a staple of the Sarasota arts scene since it was built in 1970. Photo: Emily Le Coz, Suncoast Searchlight
Meanwhile, the proposed location, just steps from Sarasota Bay, faces the same rising seas and storm surge that have already damaged the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall and could threaten any new structure there.
And while peer institutions have benefited from long-tenured leaders and deep community roots, the Sarasota Performing Arts Foundation has weathered leadership changes, with its current CEO arriving only last year.
Meanwhile, there has been persistent social media criticism from a vocal group of opponents. Led by resident Kelly Franklin, they have amplified doubts about the project’s necessity and financial feasibility.
David Lough is the president of the Downtown Sarasota Condominium Association and a member of the Rosemary District Association. He supports the new performing arts center.
David Lough said, “They have a megaphone telling everyone it’s not viable, and that hurts. I think there may be a perception from people who want to write checks that it’s just, ‘Is this so contentious?’ ‘It’s never going to happen, right?’ You know, ‘Who’s going to make a decision?’ ‘Who has the vision?’”
Lough said he was not speaking on behalf of either board.
That uncertainty contrasts with other major projects, whose leaders told Suncoast Searchlight they built trust early, communicated often and kept up a steady drumbeat of fundraising and milestones.
By contrast, the performing arts center’s early years were quieter, with fewer public milestones and a slower fundraising cadence, making it harder to project inevitability to donors.
Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in downtown Sarasota has completed the first phase of its three-phase expansion and is now into its second phase. Photo: Emily Le Coz, Suncoast Searchlight
Tania Castroverde Moskalenko, the foundation’s chief executive since 2024, said it is misleading to compare the group’s progress with other cultural projects announced in 2018 because it did not sign a formal partnership agreement with the city to build the center until 2022.
She cited a newly hired chief development officer and an expanded fundraising team as signs of renewed focus and said the city’s approval of the implementation agreement with the foundation could mark a turning point.
She said, “We’re really strengthening our fundraising team, because that’s a big part of what we have to do for this project.”
Reporting for Suncoast Searchlight, Derek Gilliam. To read the full story, go to suncoastsearchlight.org/sarasota-performing-arts-center-mote-selby-orchestra-stalls.
This story was produced by Suncoast Searchlight, a nonprofit newsroom of the Community News Collaborative serving Sarasota, Manatee, and DeSoto counties. Learn more at suncoastsearchlight.org.
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