It has been just under a year since members of the Sarasota Performing Arts Foundation brought their plan for a new performing arts center within The Bay Park to the Sarasota City Commission, hoping to move the public/private partnership forward toward implementation and a final design. What they got instead was an earful of critiques and a charge to return to the drawing board prior to any vote on a controversial project that’s been part of Sarasota’s bayfront revision plan since its start in 2018.
The Foundation took the directive to heart. On March 2, leaders will return to City Hall with “Concept 2.0,” a revised design that responds to a multitude of raised concerns, from the site location to the parking needs to the overall cost.
“We’ve been quiet, but we haven’t been idle,” said Tania Castroverde Moskalenko, CEO of the Foundation since 2024 (following the resignation of Cheryl Mendelson), at the most recent of several “Center Stage Conversations” introducing the new design. “The last four months we have made more progress on this project than in the two years I’ve been here. I hope the Foundation’s willingness to listen and respond has really showed the city, and I hope the community, that we are being responsive and responsible.”…