Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center turns 20

Where some saw an industrial wasteland two decades ago, others saw a place to build a cultural center that would strengthen Tampa's claim of "the next great American city." Meet the supporting cast.

By John Fleming, Times Performing Arts Critic
Published July 8, 2007

Designed with more of a focus on interior acoustics than exterior aesthetics, TBPAC's best side faces the Hillsborough River. "We always felt the inside was more important than the outside,'' said Andrea Graham, part of the group involved in building the center.
	[Times photo: Brian Cassella]

ADVERTISEMENT [Times photo: Kathleen Flynn] Louise Ferguson, namesake of Ferguson Hall at Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. [Times photo: Kathleen Flynn] Hinks Shimberg, pictured in Shimberg Theater at Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. [Times photo: Kathleen Flynn] Frank Morsani, pictured in Morsani Hall at Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. [Times photo: Kathleen Flynn] Lorena Jaeb and sons John and Steve. [Times photo: Kathleen Flynn] Dr. Kiran Patel and Dr. Pallavi Patel pose for a portrait at the Patel Conservatory.

TAMPA - Twenty years ago this month, the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center opened small with a free concert by a local jazz group and set in motion big changes for the city's cultural scene.

Given its massive presence on the downtown riverfront and bustling schedule - from Broadway and ballet to rock concerts and cutting-edge drama - it's hard for most residents to imagine what Tampa was like before the center.

But Mandell "Hinks" Shimberg remembers it well.

"It was like a cultural wasteland, " said Shimberg, 78, who moved to Tampa in the 1950s to start what would become his home-building empire. Shimberg loved his new hometown, but he missed the cultural scene he left behind in New York.

Louise Lykes Ferguson, doyenne of one of Tampa's leading families who has lived in the city virtually all her long life, is less blunt, but concedes that there wasn't a lot going on in the way of music, theater and dance.

"There was a Tampa symphony orchestra, " said Mrs. Ferguson, 95. "Otherwise, there were only a few small arts groups."

Starting in the 1960s, the downtowns of many American cities were being revived through cultural and park projects, but Tampa remained resolutely industrial, its downtown river "lined with warehouses, " Ferguson recalled.

By the 1980s, Sarasota had Van Wezel Hall, Clearwater had Ruth Eckerd Hall, and St. Petersburg's Mahaffey Theater had been open for more than 15 years.

Tampa was late to the game, but it wouldn't be a small player.

During the administration of Mayor Bob Martinez in the early 1980s, a public-private partnership was formed to build a multiple theater complex in what was then a dirt parking lot on the river.

Invariably, the development was touted as "the largest performing arts center south of the Kennedy Center" in Washington, D.C.

"We were, I think, fairly bold at that point in planning for the future, " said Shimberg, who was involved from the beginning, appointed to a performing arts center committee formed by Martinez and headed by the late H.L. Culbreath, chairman of Tampa Electric Co. "The audience for the arts was unproven. There were a lot of people who didn't believe that a multifaceted performing arts center was a feasible idea."

Stepping up to help the city

In many ways, the planned center had less to do with the arts than with civic pride. Local boosters calling Tampa "the next great American city" needed a tangible symbol to support the claim.

"To tell you the truth, the original board members knew very little about the performing arts - 'the pahfahmin' ahts, ' they used to say with their Southern accents, " said Andrea Graham, the first paid staff member of the group charged with building the center. "But what they did know was that the center could and would make a major impact on the city's economy."

Among the earliest backers was Frank Morsani, a Tampa automobile dealer who at one time owned 25 dealerships around the country. Morsani, 76, made out his first check to the performing arts center, for $25, 000, around 1980, and later would multiply that gift many times.

"We just felt like some people had to raise the bar and be out front in giving to the center, " he said.

Robert and Lorena Jaeb, who sold their Shop & Go convenience stores to Circle K in 1985, also were early donors.

"The community was really good to my parents, who did a lot of business here for a long time, and they felt it was a good way to give back, " said John Jaeb, 47, whose father died in 2005. Lorena Jaeb, 87, still attends shows at the theater that bears her name, most recently Cigar City Chronicles, a musical history of Tampa.

Ambitious beginnings

The construction of TBPAC, occupying nine acres donated by the city, cost $57-million, financed by a combination of private contributions and municipal bonds. The city-owned facility looks like a bargain now, considering that the somewhat larger Carnival Center for the Performing Arts, which opened last year in Miami, cost $473-million.

When it opened, TBPAC had three theaters. The biggest was 2, 500-seat Festival Hall, renamed in 1995 when Morsani and his wife, Carol, gave the center $5-million, its largest single gift ever. The 1, 000-seat Playhouse was later named for Mrs. Ferguson, and the 300-seat theater was named for the Jaebs after their $1.5-million donation. All three shared a common roof, a key design element in maximizing the sound quality in each.

"The driving force was always acoustics and the theatrical design, " said Graham, 54, who was on the center's management staff until 1990. "We always felt the inside was more important than the outside."

The most striking architectural feature is the soaring bank of lobby windows overlooking the Hillsborough River. But from any vantage point except across the river, TBPAC looks like a massive concrete box.

"Whenever I go to the performing arts center, I try to come across the Cass Street Bridge just so I get in the mood by seeing that beautiful facade on the riverfront, " Graham said. "But most people come off I-275 or come up Ashley Drive and they see what is the back of the building, the loading dock."

Banking on Broadway

Today, TBPAC is one of the country's most successful presenters, with more than 600, 000 patrons attending nearly 3, 750 events a year. It regularly ranks among the top-grossing venues of its size. But the center had a rocky beginning, going through two chief executives in five years, and accumulating more than a $2-million operating deficit.

Enter Judith Lisi, hired as the center's third executive director in 1992, coming from the Shubert Theatre in New Haven, Conn., an important stop on the Broadway touring circuit.

"The backbone of the programming from a financial standpoint has to be the Broadway series, and Judy knew Broadway, " Shimberg said.

Lisi had erased a large deficit in New Haven, and in three years, she did the same in Tampa, while increasing Broadway subscribers from 7, 000 to 12, 000.

"The first thing I had to do was to get quality Broadway, " Lisi said. "They were getting the C list shows."

She renegotiated TBPAC's contract with the Broadway series promoter, gaining the center a bigger share of ticket revenue. She also benefited from good timing. In her second season, The Phantom of the Opera made its first appearance in Tampa, virtually selling out 56 performances and grossing almost $7-million.

Lisi dressed up the drab exterior with signs, including one in neon lights visible from the freeway, and began producing cabaret shows in the underused Jaeb Theater. The first was Forever Plaid, a huge hit that toured in Florida and had numerous repeat productions in the Jaeb.

She also built a "black box" space for edgier performances in what had been a storage area for lawn mowing equipment. Originally called the Off Center Theater, it was renamed in 2000 when Hinks and Elaine Shimberg gave $1-million.

The upcoming Broadway season will be the center's first in which it will not collaborate - and split the profits - with a promoter. With the blockbuster Jersey Boys, it promises to be a good season at the box office.

Standing on its own

Broadway hits have not come without costs. Because of the touring shows' long runs, the Florida Orchestra has been shut out of Morsani Hall many times. The orchestra has lost subscribers who were unhappy with the less acoustically suitable Ferguson Hall. But making Broadway a priority was a matter of money.

"We had to pay for this thing, " said Morsani, chairman of the TBPAC board for eight years, who names Stomp as his favorite show. "We had to have it sitting on its own bottom, and it was not going to sit on its own bottom with the orchestra."

The Legislature's property tax reforms will likely mean cuts in government funding to the arts, now about 4 percent of the center's $34-million budget.

"In Florida, with the tremendous demand for infrastructure because of our growth, things like the performing arts center will have to develop a strategy so they will be independent of government resources, " Morsani said. To that end, TBPAC has raised funds for a $30-million endowment.

Morsani points to the Patel Conservatory as another key to the future of TBPAC. Named for Dr. Pallavi Patel, 57, who, with her husband, Dr. Kiran Patel, 58, made a $5-million gift, the performing arts school is the core of the center's education program.

"The education system of our state has decided that the arts are not important, " Morsani said. "Institutions like the center can help to fill that gap."

Shimberg is counting on TBPAC flourishing as part of a proposed cultural district, which will also include a new Tampa Museum of Art and a children's museum, in addition to new condominium developments.

"It could be a real charming area, " he said. "Twenty years from now I see a much more urban setting for the center."

Now, on the center's 20th birthday, he thinks that Tampa's cultural scene is in good shape.

"I couldn't be more pleased with what is here now, " Shimberg said. "I sit in the theater and it makes me feel very good."

John Fleming can be reached at (727) 893-8716 or fleming@sptimes.com.

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TBPAC's 20th anniversary
The arts center will celebrate at 8 p.m. Saturday in Ferguson Hall with a concert by the Fred Johnson Group, the jazz group that opened the hall in 1987. Admission is free, but tickets are required. You can request up to four tickets at (813) 229-7827 or toll-free 1-800-955-1045. Also, you can visit the box office at 1010 N MacInnes Place in Tampa. There is no online ticketing for this event. For more information, go to www.tbpac.org.

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By the numbers

10-million: guests at the center since it opened in 1987

335,000: square feet, TBPAC's size

792: performances in 2005-06

621,408: visitors in 2005-06

738: bottles of Chardonnay consumed on site in 2005-06

$16.9-million: ticket sales in 2005-06

71,025: students served by Patel Conservatory in 2005-06

$1.36-million: gross for Wicked for March 6-11, 2007, the center's largest for a single week

$215,747: gross for Mariah Carey's Sept. 2, 2003, concert, the largest for one performance

6: engagements of Les Miserables at TBPAC

4: semitrucks the loading dock can handle at once

700: TBPAC volunteers

66: TBPAC volunteers with 20 years of service

[Last modified July 5, 2007, 13:41:51]