- March 24, 2025
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Many questions still remain following the Feb. 11 City Commission workshop on the city’s potential financial participation in building a new performing arts center. With a scheduled March 3 vote on an implementation agreement with the Sarasota Performing Arts Foundation, some answers may remain elusive.
Chief among them is what appears at the moment to be the likely lack of participation of the Sarasota County Commission, which to date has demonstrated no interest in dedicating any of its share of the tax increment financing revenues to help pay for it.
That leaves the city potentially on its own to cover half the cost — rather than 25% —now estimated at $407 million for the pared-down project, plus upwards of another $25 million to $40 million of investment for utilities and other infrastructure obligations and additional parking to accommodate occasional simultaneous use of all the facilities and activities in The Bay.
Similar to the cost sharing with the Bay Park Conservancy for the park, the partnership agreement with the Foundation requires a 50-50 capital investment split between local government and the organization.
But capital funding wasn’t the only issue concerning commissioners. Others included:
At least a majority of the commissioners will need to be satisfied when the vote on whether to approve the implementation agreement — now two years later than originally deadlined — with the Foundation occurs. Approval will trigger the next step in designing the theater complex, which since being introduced as a concept has been pared from four buildings to two, with the potential to build a third at a later date.
The concept as currently presented separates a single building into two — a 300-seat multipurpose room and a 2,700-seat main theater — built along North Tamiami Trail on and north of the canal. A future 800-seat medium theater on the south side of the canal is currently a placeholder. For storm resiliency, the structures would be elevated 20 feet with public open space below and connected by overhead crosswalks.
Joining the meeting virtually from his office in Genoa, Italy, Renzo Piano Building Workshop Partner-in-Charge Mark Carroll reminded commissioners the designs are in the earliest of stages.
“This has been a roughly five- to six-month effort from all the different teams, and you should all recognize that there will be another two-and-a-half years to three years of design work ahead of us,” Carroll said. “ We don't pretend to answer all the questions about the project, but we have answered many.”
Architects can address questions about design concepts, but not about government funding obligations and a decades-old view corridor easement on the property. The large theater can be moved south of the canal, as some commissioners suggested, but as long as a view corridor restriction from condominium towers across North Tamiami Trail continues to apply to the site, there would be no gain in resilience. That in no small measure is part of the impetus for building a new performing arts center.
The view corridor restricts a new building in what is currently the Van Wezel parking lot to 90 feet in height. To meet that limitation and still include a fly tower tall enough to accommodate touring shows, the minimum elevation for a finished floor level is 10 feet above sea level, roughly the same as the Van Wezel just a couple hundred yards to west.
“So you would be building another Van Wezel,” said Jerry Sparkman, a principal of the project architect of record Sweet Sparkmen.
Added Carroll, “The view corridor has inhibited us to place the large theater south of the boat canal. Maybe something changes, and then we can think about what you're suggesting.”
The only change that could occur is a successful negotiation between the city and the residents’ associations of the Alinari and Renaissance condo towers to amend the view corridor restrictions, and that would likely require financial compensation.
Should commissioners approve the implementation agreement, that matter should be resolved sooner than later as design work would need to begin in order to meet the projected start of construction in the first quarter of 2028 and completion two years later.
Any delays would likely add to the estimated construction cost escalation of $42 million, which today takes the total project cost from $365 million in 2024 dollars to $407 million.
When the project was conceived, it was envisioned — at least by the city and the Foundation — that the city and county would each contribute 25% of the project cost from the TIF district funds, all of which must be spent on construction of the 53-acre The Bay park and accessibility projects surrounding it. Those revenues are benchmarked off the 2019 property values in the TIF district overlay, which covers 1,734 parcels with a taxable value at that time of $850.4 million.
All revenues from increased property tax value within the TIF district through 2049 are allocated to be spent within the Bay Park and the district. Via interlocal agreement between the city and county, those funds would be invested in co-equal partnership with the Bay Park Conservancy inside the park boundaries — and presumably at the time with the Performing Arts Foundation for a new facility — along with street, sidewalk and other improvements outside the park.
The Sarasota County Commission outwardly appears unanimous in its objection to investing any funds in a new performing arts center, which is eligible given its location within The Bay. Vice Mayor Debbie Trice bristled at the current assumption that the city and the Foundation will have to go it alone on the project.
“I'm disappointed that we appear to be letting the county off the hook on the interlocal agreement in the TIF,” Trice said. “This is a regional project, and the county is going to have economic benefits as much as the city is going to have economic benefits. It is not just residents of the city who will be attending performances, it will be county residents, so I'm a little bit concerned that we appear to say, ‘OK Sarasota County, we’ll move forward without you.’
“In fact, I would even advocate for putting a surcharge on non-city residents if the county chooses to get out of their agreement.”
With the county, the city’s projected $146 million TIF fund total falls far short of its half of the possible $407 million final price tag, and that doesn’t include an estimated $55.25 million to $70.25 million in new parking, utility and other infrastructure needed for the project, nor does that include any interest on bond debt, which is borrowed against future TIF revenues. A proposed $5 per ticket surcharge would net $27 million to pay toward bond debt and debt for parking construction can be borrowed against user fees.
The TIF projection, though, only factors current values in the district set against anticipated increases and current millage rates. No new projects, and there are several under construction or planned in the district, are factored. Those include — in The Quay — One Park, One Park West and Ritz-Carlton Residences II; and adjacent to The Quay the redevelopment of the Hyatt Regency hotel, to name a few. Several condominium and apartment developments are also planned or under construction in the Rosemary District, a portion of which is within the TIF district. Once those units enter the tax rolls, the revenue projections will be updated.
“I believe the county's latest figures, if they choose to participate, are in the $180 million range which, of course, could support all projects, the Performing Arts Center and the park,” said HR&A Advisors Principal Alex Stokes of the county’s TIF projection. “And we'll have a number of other buildings that are on the tax rolls that will make these projections substantially more assuming that things that are under construction are completed.”
