A new art museum in Tampa. Ruth Eckerd Hall. The Florida Holocaust Museum. Those and more won't be getting requested state funds.
By CURTIS KRUEGER, DAVID KARP and ALISA ULFERTS
Published May 28, 2003
For months, Tampa appeared to have a good shot at receiving $2.5-million in state money for a new downtown art museum to help anchor a revitalized cultural arts district.
Now it won't get a nickel.
The art museum was one of many cultural and historical projects throughout Florida that received little or no money in the state budget approved by the Florida Legislature on Tuesday night.
Among the other Tampa Bay area projects that made it through a preliminary review but did not receive any of the money backers had sought: a new school at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, $500,000; a visitor center at the Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, $500,000; Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater, $500,000; the Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg, $500,000; and the Florida Folk Music and Culture Center at the Heritage Village historical museum in Largo, $200,000.
"I'm totally, totally upset, distraught . . . at the lack of funding for the amenities that make people want to be in Florida," Tampa City Council member Linda Saul-Sena said.
The Legislature, looking for ways to trim spending, did not earmark money for 51 cultural facilities grants that would have totaled $17.6-million. The grants had been approved and ranked by a state panel that evaluated their artistic and cultural merit.
One of this year's few winners was Academy Prep Center in Tampa, which will receive a $300,000 grant to renovate the historic V.M. Ybor elementary school in Tampa.
Academy Prep will be a new school in Tampa and open at a different location this summer during the renovation. It is affiliated with Academy Prep in St. Petersburg, a school that provides a rigorous, free education for low-income, at risk students.
"It's going to be a gem; it's a beautiful building," said Lincoln Tamayo, head of the Tampa school. He said the school building at 1407 E Columbus Ave. dates to 1908 and was Ybor City's first public school.
The state budget also apparently will not provide money for some other local historic preservation programs including: $300,000 for the Tampa Firefighters Museum, $239,902 for Hillsborough County's John B. Gorrie Elementary School, and $96,600 for Tampa's Sulphur Springs Gazebo and Water Tower.
Backers of projects that did not receive state money said they would make do.
"If not this year, we will certainly try for it next year," Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio said of the $2.5-million sought for the Tampa art museum.
The city, which has pledged $29.8-million to build the new museum, had not counted on the state dollars, Iorio said.
But private fundraisers for the museum had expected the state money. They had hoped to use the $2.5-million state grant to help reach a goal of about $30-million. So far, fundraisers have secured pledges for about $15-million.
In a separate project, the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center plans to build a four-story school for the performing arts.
The Legislature's failure to provide a $500,000 grant that had cleared a review panel presents the center with an additional fundraising challenge.
"Our campaign has been successful to date and we anticipate completing our campaign and being successful," said vice president for development Julie Britton. "It will just mean that we will continue to work hard if not harder."
