Study committee leans toward no reuse for Van Wezel

By all appearances, the majority opinion of Sarasota’s Purple Ribbon Committee is leaning toward not repurposing the city’s primary performing arts venue should construction move forward for a new Sarasota Performing Arts Center.

The committee is nearing the conclusion of its two-year mission to recommend a reuse of the 50-year-old Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall — if one at all — with it scheduled to submit a report to the City Commission by the end of June.

As members discussed elements of a draft report at its May 27 meeting, the panel appears to be favoring implementation of some elements of a recent study conducted by Karins Engineering to protect the building from the elements and maintaining certain mechanical functions for the next five to seven years. 

Afterward, with the lack of any interest expressed by local performing arts organizations to take over the building and given its proximity Sarasota Bay and the ravages of the 2024 hurricane season, the Van Wezel may have outlived its usefulness, based on the discussion.

“The highest and best use of that site, in my opinion, is as park and as buffer for storm surge,” said Robert Bunting, the committee’s climate scientist. “People have been talking about view corridors and seeing the bay. If you were going to build a building, you couldn't have built a more blocking building as far as seeing the water. From the point of view of its functionality, the park and saving the park from the ravages of storm surge and having concrete walls there, it would be far better not to have it.

“You would never put it there today. If you had the choice, that would be the last place you would put it.”

At times, the discussion ventured into areas not necessarily within the scope of the committee’s charter. That included should the committee recommend the city seek historic building designation and what that might mean to the preservation of the Van Wezel, whether the city should develop a cultural arts plan, to what level the city should maintain the structure in the near term, etc.

As he has often done throughout the two years of meetings, the city-appointed facilitator Jim Shirley reminded the members of the narrow focus of their mission.

“I think maybe we're getting a little bit too much in the weeds for what we're being tasked to do,” he said, “when you say to the commission we recommend that you do everything that's feasible and logical to keep the Van Wezel operating at peak condition until the new performing arts hall is built. That's up to (Van Wezel Executive Director) Mary (Bensel) and her staff and others to make that happen, if they can.”

Just how much money the Van Wezel will have at its disposal for maintenance is questionable as the city is in the midst of its fiscal year 2026 budget cycle following a year when hurricane season blew a $9 million hole in the city's general fund balance, reducing the reserve fund of $28.7 million entering the fiscal year to $19.2 million. 

Repairs to the Van Wezel, some of it to be reimbursed by FEMA, topped $10 million. Meanwhile, the city still faces $17 million in repairs to waterfront parks and piers over the next 2 to 3 years, much of that expected to be reimbursed albeit years down the road.

Despite the Van Wezel not operating at a deficit for the last 17 years under Bensel’s management, its fund balance is insufficient for spending $17 million on repairs recommended by Karins Engineering to keep the building at peak operational performance, including storm resiliency.

Bensel said the Van Wezel has never run a deficit in her years of managing it and it has covered critical maintenance issues. An expenditure of $17 million, though, is not feasible.

“I've just been very fortunate that I've been able to book the right things for the last 17 years, but you don't want to have no funds left over, so it would have to come out of a budget,” Bensel said of the Karins list of repairs. “The city also is tasked with significant budget factors because of the last hurricane, and right now every (department) director is going through an exercise of cutting.”

Building the new Sarasota Performing Arts Center is not yet an official certainty. The city and the Sarasota Performing Arts Foundation have postponed the signing of an implementation agreement on multiple occasions, most recently as the foundation and architect Renzo Piano Building Workshop continue to work to pin down the exact location of the new PAC within The Bay park. 

Once an implementation agreement is in place, the next phase of design work can begin. 

Meanwhile, the Purple Ribbon Committee is attempting to strike a balance between the need to keep the Van Wezel operating optimally while the future of a new facility plays out. The opening paragraph of the Purple Ribbon Committee’s draft report, as read by Chairman Charles Cosler, reads:

“The risk to the continuity, sustainability and viability of the performing arts in Sarasota is the triple risk of the aging and increasingly obsolete Van Wezel Hall, its location only 15 feet from the bay and increasing hurricanes and tropical storms. This risk is compounded by the slow-paced development of the new proposed Performing Arts Center to replace Van Wezel.”