The new $407m price tag does not include a grass-covered ‘parking hump’ in The Bay park.
Gretchen Cochran
Original Air Date: Feb. 12, 2025
Host: After a delay caused by last year’s catastrophic storm season, Tuesday was Sarasota Performing Arts Center Day. In two events, the proponents of what is the most expensive project in the city’s history presented a changed design and new cost calculations that are much higher. Gretchen Cochran brings us the details and the skeptical reactions of at least one commissioner.
The town hall at the Municipal Auditorium was packed with more than 200 onlookers; organizers had to bring extra chairs from storage. The only feedback was through written questions and comments. Photos: Werner
Gretchen Cochran: The newest iteration of a potential new Performing Arts Center in Sarasota was presented Tuesday first to the city commission workshop in the morning and then to a packed town hall at the Municipal Auditorium in the afternoon.
The four buildings that would set along Tamiami Trail have been shoved to the north and reduced to two. The main theater building has been enlarged, now to seat 2,700. South of it would be a multi-purpose building 20 feet above ground with a rooftop terrace. And the estimated cost continues to grow, now at $365 million when computed in future dollars.
The foundation team came loaded with personnel and slides. Cortez Crosley, who works on the project’s finances, presented an increased cost estimate of $365 million, plus expected “escalations”, for a total of $407 million.
Cortez Crosley.
Cortez Crosley: Another factor related to time is we’re thinking about escalations. As we mentioned earlier, all the numbers thus far have been in 2024 dollars just so that there’s a consistency — a reference point — across the business plan and the project costs and all of that, but of course, construction will happen in the future, so we do want to think about and plan for that. That’s approximately a potential additional $42 million on that hard cost. That would mean that the total project cost would increase from 365 to 407 as a result of that escalation on hard cost construction.
GC: Throughout the presentations, comparisons to the current hurricane-debilitated Van Wezel Performing Arts Center, also known as the “purple cow,” crept in. Van Wezel only seats 1,700, Foundation Director Tania Castroverde noted. When completed, the new center would have $194 million dollars worth of economic impact on the area, 59 percent greater than Van Wezel, she threw in. Castroverde suggested this building will be there for centuries.
Tania Castroverde.
Tania Castroverde: At the end of the day, if you talk to our architect, Renzo Piano, he says these buildings are designed for two, three hundred years. This is not really for us. It’s for our children, our grandchildren, and our great grandchildren.
GC: In less than three weeks, the Sarasota City Commission could in essence give a thumbs up or down on the massive project. City Commissioner Jen Ahearn-Koch says it may not be that stark, but she has reservations about the cost in relation to other demands before the city.
Jen Ahearn-Koch: You’re also putting the city — city hall — obligation for paying back bonds and things like that. It gets big. We already have them that we’re paying back right now for Bobby Jones, for the police department, for other things in our city. We have big things we need to be thinking about in our city. We just had three hurricanes. We’re having lots of discussions about infrastructure, about hardening, about resiliency, about stormwater and flooding, so I’m not so sure the community right now has the appetite for spending money or borrowing money for something that is a want over something that is a need.
GC: Ahearn-Koch’s home, by the way, was flooded during Hurricane Milton, and she is still in the process of putting it back together.
To swing the finances, the county could help but recently withdrew part of their funding. To make the project happen, Jon Thaxton of the Gulf Coast Community Foundation told WSLR, we need to build a city-county relationship.
Scale model of the proposed performing arts center.
By moving the buildings north, 3.5 acres would be freed up for the park, we were told, referring to the gigantic new park being developed in essence in the Van Wezel parking lot along the seashore. Fittingly, it is called just “The Bay.”
Turning Van Wezel’s parking lots into a park creates a need for alternative parking spaces. The city’s parking analysis projects a need for close to 5,300 spaces. Considering parking facilities nearby, the report projected a need for close to 1,400 spaces, 600 of them in a to-be-built grass-covered parking hump. The balance would have to come from spaces around downtown. Commissioner Kathy Kelley Olhrich said, “That’s just a no-go for me.” Parking facilities for the project now are estimated to cost $30 million.
Van Wezel, owned by the city, is currently limping along but it is expected to receive $17 million to get it in good operating condition. “We have no options on that,” Jen Ahearn-Koch said.
The ad hoc Purple Ribbon Committee studying it, meets Thursday at city hall at 5 p.m. to hear yet another engineer’s report. At one point, Commissioner Ohlrich noted the number of people studying this issue. “Can’t we get them all at one table to talk?” she asked.
Meanwhile, the new performing arts center design is in its creative phase and will continue to evolve. Stay tuned.
Reporting for WSLR News, this has been Gretchen Cochran.
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