- December 5, 2025
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Tiger Bay Club held a forum on the Sarasota Purple Ribbon Committee report, and a debate over a new Sarasota Performing Arts Center broke out.
That inevitable outcome occurred at the organization’s Sept. 4 meeting at Michael’s On East as a packed room of members and guests on both sides of the issue heard a panel discussion moderated by Jon Thaxton, director of policy and advocacy of the Gulf Coast Community Foundation.
The scheduled topic of the city-appointed committee’s recommendations for repurposing of the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall quickly exited stage left as the spotlight took focus on the merits of how, why, where — and even whether — a new primary performing arts venue.
The panel members included:
As a prologue, Thaxton read some relevant published comments.
“The cost of the design is all wrong for Sarasota, and taxpayers are going to be burdened with bond repayments for years,” he read, adding concerns about budgeting transparency and higher priorities on which to spend the city’s resources.
“I thought sounds like a good Tiger Bay program, but it couldn't have been a Tiger Bay program because those quotes all came from the 1987 and ’88 newspapers," Thaxton said. "Tiger Bay was founded in ’87. Those quotes came from the late ’60s because the controversy then was whether or not to build a new performing arts hall, which came to be known as the Van Wezel.”
Thaxton brought that up, he said, because contention is historically part of the “Sarasota decision-making DNA” and that such controversy is nothing new to the community.
Addressing the committee’s report, delivered on Aug. 18 after two years and 28 meetings to the City Commission, which in summary recommended an investment of $17 million for interim fixes and added resiliency to the Van Wezel to keep it operating optimally for at least seven years if and until building a new facility. It characterized the 55-year-old building as outmoded for contemporary performances and increasingly vulnerable given its close proximity to Sarasota Bay.
“Do we save the Van Wezel or do we get a new performing arts hall? I'm going to go on record by saying today it is not an either/or situation. It never should be, in my opinion, or rarely should it be,” Hylton said. “I think that it's in that space of compromise when people genuinely put aside their personal biases and come together and find that common ground. That's where we're the most creative.”
Fiscal reality, though, is often where creativity and practicality part ways.
Bullock told the audience he had earlier that morning transmitted an action plan to the City Commission focused on the safeguarding the building envelope plus protecting and addressing deferred maintenance of interior and mechanical systems. The Van Wezel suffered $2.2 million in water damage caused by the storm surge brought by Hurricane Milton. Combined with lost revenue from canceled shows, the total loss was $5 million.
The Van Wezel has the funds for that work in its fund balance reserves, and Bullock said it will be put to use.
“Why is a Van Wezel important? It's also a business, and to the city it's what we call an enterprise fund,” Bullock said. “An enterprise fund is supposed to generate all the revenue it takes to build and maintain and operate the facility. And for the first time I believe the city's history, since (executive director) Mary Bensel has been here, the Van Wezel has created a very significant reserve, which we're going to use some of now to take care of the lessons we learned.”
Bullock said the plan, which will take two years to complete, is a nearly $10 million endeavor, some work already completed and much of it in progress.
That was the breaking news. The remainder of the program was highlighted by civil discourse between the new PAC supporter Saunders and Cardamone, who represented the opposition faction.
“You can look around this room and look at what others have had to fight through to get to consensus to change this community,” Saunders said of the assembled membership. “We have never done a project of this size as a community. … That takes time, and I think sometimes you have to go slow to go fast. I'm excited about the future because I think we're pivoting from going slow to going fast.”
The Sarasota PAC pace is on the brink of acceleration as the Performing Arts Foundation and City Commission awaited the Purple Ribbon Committee report before revisiting an implementation agreement to take the project to the next step of the design phase. That item has yet to be placed on a City Commission agenda.
Among her concerns, Cardamone said, is the cost of a new PAC. Estimated at $400 million, the capital investment would be an evenly divided public-private venture, the public portion from tax increment financing district revenues on the improved tax value of downtown properties surrounding The Bay Park, such as The Quay.
“The cost includes 1,000 more seats than what Van Wezel currently has,” Cardamone said. “We have 1,741 seats in the Van Wezel, which was slightly enlarged, and the stage house was built when I was in office with a $20 million price tag. … It has served its need as far as bringing Broadway to Sarasota.
"I don't see the need for that," she continued regarding the possible 2,700 seats. "Our figures show that we don't often sell out the Van Wezel, so why are we adding 1,000 more seats to make this probably the biggest hall on the west coast of Florida?”
That will be among the essential questions considered as the characteristically contentious debate over growth in Sarasota continues.
“If a new facility is never built,” Bullock said, “there will be some group of future folks sitting here talking about the future of the Van Wezel, which will then be 100 years old.”
Correction: This story was updated to correct the spellings of Mollie Cardamone and Michael’s On East. It was also corrected to include the updated cost of damage to the Van Wezel.
