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Schools

Dali Museum gets 99-year lease

Its new building will go up on St. Petersburg's downtown waterfront.

By DONNA WINCHESTER, Times Staff Writer
Published November 30, 2007

ST. PETERSBURG - City officials sealed a deal with the Salvador Dali Museum Thursday, ensuring that the museum will be part of the downtown waterfront for the next 99 years.

The museum will pay $1 per year to lease a new site near the Mahaffey Theater.

As part of the deal, the University of South Florida St. Petersburg will purchase the four acres where the museum currently sits and transform it into a new college of business.

"I think this will be an incredible boost to our community and for all the generations to come," Mayor Rick Baker said at a ceremony in the museum's main gallery. "I can think of few things I've had more enthusiasm for than this project."

Speaking on behalf of the USF St. Petersburg community, regional chancellor Karen White said one of her priorities for the past five years has been a permanent home for the college of business.

Voters approved a referendum to allow the land transactions in 2004, but the approval came with a Nov. 30 deadline. If the city and the museum hadn't reached agreement by midnight tonight, the city would have been forced to hold a second referendum.

Museum executive director Hank Hine answered a question at Thursday's ceremony that many were asking as the deadline approached: With the city, the museum and USF all standing to gain, why did it take so long to hammer out the deal?

"I think it was simply because it was so important," Hine said.

Museum officials have released few details about the building that will rise on the new site, other than to say it will be a more secure environment for the 2,140-piece collection.

"We've always been driven by a desire to protect the collection," Hine said. "We want to have a building that will lift it out of harm's way and keep it safe for generations to come."

The $32-million building, which Hine said should be completed in 2010, will feature state-of-the-art technology, a permanent gallery for student art, and areas where the approximately 200,000 yearly visitors can contemplate Dali's work.

Jim Martin, a St. Petersburg lawyer who was instrumental in bringing the collection of A. Reynolds and Eleanor Morse to St. Petersburg in 1980, said the building's exterior will be more representative of Dali's surrealism.

"With this building, you can't tell from the outside what's inside," Martin said. "The new building will be different."

The museum board will work hard over the next two years to raise the additional funds needed for the new facility, said treasurer Bill Hough. So far, the board has earmarked for the project $8-million in state appropriations, $7-million in pledges, and the $6-million USF St. Petersburg has agreed to pay for the museum's current site at Third Avenue S.

USF will give the city $500,000 up front to secure the deal, and the remainder of the purchase price will be paid when museum officers vacate the building, said university spokeswoman Holly Kickligher.

[Last modified November 30, 2007, 00:03:18]