Sarasota Players returning home to downtown Sarasota

Four years after it vacated its performance space in downtown Sarasota, The Sarasota Players is returning home.

On Friday, the Sarasota City Commission unanimously, if not somewhat reluctantly on the part of Vice Mayor Jen Ahearn-Koch and Commissioner Debbie Trice, approved the terms of a 30-year lease for Payne Park Auditorium.

The commission meeting was rescheduled from Oct. 7 becase of Hurricane Milton.

The base term is a rent of $100 per year plus $1 per ticket sold for performances held by The Players and any other performing arts organizations there. The Players is working with other community performing arts groups for shared use of the facility. The intent is that the auditorium serve as a temporary home with long-term plans to build a new facility on a vacant city-owned property at the northeast corner of Washington Boulevard and Laurel Street, just a few hundred yards away. 

While the organization may make improvements to the auditorium — any project in excess of $50,000 must be approved by the city manager or a designee — the building cannot be expanded to occupy additional space in Payne Park. 

The Sarasota Players, formerly branded The Players Centre for the Performing Arts, has been in pursuit of a new home since selling its building in 2016, vacating the space in 2020. In 2018, it entered into an agreement with Lakewood Ranch developer Schroeder-Manatee Ranch to build a $30 million theater complex at Waterside Village, those plans falling through in 2022. 

Performances are currently held in vacant retail space at The Crossings at Siesta on South Tamiami Trail where it has 140 seats surrounding a central stage. 

In July, The Players presented a plan to triple the size of Payne Park Auditorium by building a new performance hall adjacent to the current building, a plan that met with considerable opposition from the surrounding community. 

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“On July 15, the City Commission voted unanimously to direct the staff and the city attorney's office to prepare a lease agreement for the Payne Park Auditorium building only, and exclude any other improvements within the park, but limit the lease only to the auditorium,” said Wayne Appleby the city’s economic development manager. 

The commission also directed staff to remove a claw-back provision that would allow The Players to recoup improvement costs to the building once the lease — then proposed at 10 years with two successive 10-year extensions, is terminated. The term is now a traditional, non-profit 30-year lease.

Although the new terms were negotiated at the commission’s direction, there was yet another attempt to make substantial changes at the dais — Trice concerned about yet another lease of city-owned property at $100 per year, albeit with escalators tied to the Consumer Price Index, and by Ahearn-Koch who wasn’t clear about revenues from ancillary uses and whether it was clearly stated that the primary use of the building is for performances.

After Commissioner Erik Arroyo motioned approved of the lease as presented, changes to the terms were suggested, much to the chagrin of Mayor Liz Alpert.

“It drives me crazy to rewrite substantially oontracts that have been negotiated between two parties at the commission table, just flying by the seat of our pants,” Alpert admonished. 

City Auditor and Clerk Shayla Griggs, after the roll call vote began, reminded the reticent Ahearn-Koch that discussion time had ended.

“I really want to support this. I really support The Players and this arts organization. I really, really do,” Ahearn-Koch said. “I have difficult time with these terms and some of these words.”

“We already talked,” Griggs replied. “We’re in the middle vote vice mayor.” 

Followed a brief pause, Ahern-Koch joined her colleagues in approving the lease.

Now approved, the lease agreement will commence upon the city vacating Payne Park Auditorium, currently used by Parks and Recreation Department personnel. Although initial term of the lease agreement will terminate 30 years from the commencement date, it may also terminate on the date The Players receives a certificate of occupancy for a new building at the Washington Boulevard site.