Fill out this form to email this article to a friend
Week in review
CULTURE CENTER GROUP DISSOLVES: Citing a lack of support from the county and the city, a group formed to build a cultural arts center in New Tampa has abandoned the mission.
By Times Staff Writer
Published August 28, 2005
The nonprofit New Tampa Cultural Arts Center will no longer look for land for a center, the group announced this week.
As part of its dissolution, the organization's board voted to distribute its assets to the New Tampa Players, a local community theatrical group, and other New Tampa not-for-profit interests in support of the arts.
"We reached a point in this effort where the political forces were not lining up behind us," said Graeme Woodbrook, the president and force behind the New Tampa Cultural Arts Center.
"Since the city was about to spend over $22,000 to do a feasibility study, I felt with good conscience I could not take that money if the support is not there."
The organization operated under the premise that it would get land from either the county or the city to build a facility. A city-funded feasibility study in 2003 concluded that New Tampa could support such a center. But city officials wanted to limit its size to 350 seats, in part to ensure no competition with Tampa's downtown arts scene.
Even with this limited size, it was a struggle to line up the land.
Hillsborough County government initially indicated that the center could get a portion of an 81-acre site it had purchased from St. Joseph's Hospital on Bruce B. Downs Boulevard. But in April the county said it needed all that land for a retention pond as workers widened Bruce B. Downs.
Organizers then cast their sights on a piece of city-owned land. Under that scenario, the city would swap some land with St. James United Methodist Church, leaving a section for the cultural arts center.
At a recent meeting of city officials, Woodbrook said, he learned that officials "were not even sure that that was going to happen, and if the deal did go through, the acreage would be less than 4 acres."
City council member Shawn Harrison said he "certainly gave it my best shot to build that support at the City Council and with two mayors, and to some extent, at the County Commission as well."
The theater company will now look for another, likely smaller home.
[Last modified August 27, 2005, 11:05:06]
Share your thoughts on this story
|
News
Fifty years ago, they were screwed-up kids sent to the Florida School for Boys to be straightened out. But now they are screwed-up men, scarred by the whippings they endured. Read the story and see a video and portrait gallery.
Print
Email story
Comment
Email editor
