FULL STORY: Garage murals approved

Thanks to Sarasota City Commissioner Paul Caragiulo’s last-minute reconsideration, a $25,000 art mural project for the Palm Avenue parking garage is moving forward.

Caragiulo initially expressed concern about the project, which calls for the expenditure of $25,000 in public art funds to create the first downtown public art murals.

“I’m a huge fan of this building,” Caragiulo said of the garage. “But I’m having a problem visualizing the continuity of how this coincides with other downtown public art projects.”

Caragiulo questioned whether public art funds should be used to fund the initiative.

After a brief presentation from architect Jonathan Parks and Jonathan Parks Architect senior planner Chris Gallagher, Caragiulo made a motion to deny funding for the project.

Caragiulo had support from Vice Mayor Terry Turner and Commissioner Shannon Snyder. As a majority, they turned down the project.

Turner said that although he gave much weight to Parks’ presentation and passion, he couldn’t justify the expenditure.

“We have spent a fortune on this building, and I think we need to be distributing our resources more broadly through downtown,” Turner said. “It will be five years, if we are lucky, before this garage is intensively used. At a later date, if we have lots of money and people are using the garage, I might feel quite different about it.”

Mayor Suzanne Atwell, however, disagreed with the majority.

“Now is the time to do this,” Atwell said. “I think this will breathe life into this gorgeous building. This is a stunning idea that will draw people to this structure.”

Parks told the commission his garage is an unfinished piece of art right now.

“You trusted me to get it this far,” Parks said. “I think I have control over the process and can present a canvas for the artists to make it successful … The artwork will say, ‘This is Sarasota.’ After we get this done, it will be a finished piece.”

That plea prompted Caragiulo to make a motion at the end of the afternoon session to revisit his earlier motion.

“I was going against what two designers of this building saw as something that makes their building complete,” Caragiulo said. “I’m not an artist. Who am I to say it doesn’t work?”

When the commissioners voted again, Caragiulo, Atwell and Commissioner Willie Shaw were in the majority to approve the art project.

Gallagher and Parks, who rushed back into the commission chambers in time to see the vote reversed, were pleased with the decision.

“We have an opportunity to do something we have not done yet in the city,” Gallagher said. “We will be creating public art murals that the public can get extremely close to.”

The firm’s concept calls for five artists painting sweeping, colorful murals, with a different theme planned for each floor of the garage.

The proposal calls for a dance theme for the second floor, a film theme for the third floor, a music theme for the fourth floor, a theater theme for the fifth floor and an opera theme for the sixth floor.

The Sarasota Chalk Festival will be incorporated into the project by allowing the artists to work with local children.

The city already has set aside money for art in the facility. The city’s zoning code requires that every new project downtown set aside .05% of the construction cost toward downtown artwork. In the case of the garage, that translates into $54,000 for future artwork.