Plan crafted for fine arts expansion

Directors of the downtown cultural center commit to push ahead with plans to more than double the size of the facility.

By LENNIE BENNETT

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 10, 2000

ST. PETERSBURG -- The Museum of Fine Arts, a longtime cultural anchor downtown, is closer to the expansion that its leaders have been quietly discussing for several years.

Museum president Carol Upham announced that on May 1 the board of trustees "voted resoundingly to proceed with investigating the expansion," which would more than double existing space.

The cautious wording, she said, was because the group wanted to make sure it could raise the estimated $7-million to $8-million needed without invading the museum's endowment and to allay community concerns about building on park land.

The museum is at 255 Beach Drive NE, in Straub Park, on 4.5 acres the city gave to the institution in the early 1960s. The Palladian-style building, which encloses about 33,000 square feet, and a parking lot occupy about two-thirds of the total parcel.

"We've never made a big deal over it, and many people think it's part of the park," said Mrs. Upham. "But we do own and have title to the land past the parking lot over to the big banyan tree. For moral reasons, our intention is to preserve that park land as much as we can. We have great sensitivity to people's concerns."

Both Mrs. Upham and museum director Michael Milkovich said a 50,000-square-foot, three-story wing likely would be built on the existing parking lot. The ground level would remain parking, with two floors of new galleries, support space and rooms for more educational programs. Some of the existing museum space would be reconfigured for a larger gift shop.

Milkovich said an expansion "is absolutely necessary. Only 10 percent of our collection is on view now. We have room for only 15 children in a class when we have requests for several hundred. It limits our effectiveness in the community."

Milkovich would like a permanent photography gallery to display some of the museum's collection of about 1,000 prints, "one of the finest in the Southeast," he said. More gallery space also would allow for larger traveling exhibits that museums rely on more and more to attract crowds.

The most recent example at the Museum of Fine Arts is The Fantastical World of Croatian Naive Art, a group of colorful paintings never shown in the United States, on view through May 28. Public relations director David Connelly said attendance since it opened in February has been more than 30,000.

"Last year," he said, "We had no major exhibitions and our attendance totaled 105,615. This year I think we'll have as many as 140,000, because of this exhibition and one in the fall with important American art from the mid 19th to early 20th centuries."

The Museum of Fine Arts expansion appears to be part of a trend in cultural growth in St. Petersburg.

The Salvador Dali Museum is proceeding with plans to build an addition onto its waterfront site, and Great Explorations, the Hands-On Museum hopes to move from its temporary location at The Pier to a larger space in Sunken Gardens. The Arts Center recently completed an expansion and Florida Craftsmen announced its intention to buy the building where it currently leases space and add galleries. Clustered around these larger, not-for-profit institutions are at least a dozen small art galleries that are privately owned.

Mrs. Upham said the Museum of Fine Arts is not expanding "because others are. This has been a considered process. The collection has grown so, from 500 pieces when we first opened (in 1965) to more than 4,000. The museum's mission continues to be education, education through objects. Where else can you come to look at a Monet or one of the other great works and understand how priceless it is?"

Jonathan Toppe of Harvard Jolly Clees Toppe Architects has presented preliminary plans to the trustees. They show an addition conforming to the Palladian architecture with an arcade that would link the new space to the museum.

The main entrance would continue to be the imposing, columned portico on Beach Drive. A second portico entrance facing north, toward the Renaissance Vinoy Resort, would lead into the second floor.

Inside, an open courtyard would face a large, glass-ceilinged sculpture gallery. Two more large galleries totaling 7,000 square feet would be used primarily for visiting exhibitions. Smaller galleries would house work from the permanent collection.

Storage and receiving areas would be moved to the addition. That area, now on the south side of the museum, would be converted to an education wing. The upper floor would contain a large, vault-like storage room in the center to protect art from storm damage, surrounded by offices, a larger library, community rooms and conservation areas.

Parking spaces along the west side of Bayshore, behind the museum, would be changed from parallel to angled spaces, doubling the number.

Mrs. Upham said the board will continue to study use and needs before final plans are drawn. She has no firm timetable yet, "but I would hope we could finish in three years. It depends so much on funding."

The museum was founded by Margaret Acheson Stuart, whose $1-million gift was the major funding for the original building. It was she who persuaded city officials to donate park land to the endeavor.

This will be the third major expansion since the museum first opened. In 1974, the Stuart Memorial Garden and the Marly Room, for social functions and performing arts, were completed. In the late 1980s, more galleries and office space were added.

Both Mrs. Upham and Milkovich have committed to remaining in leadership roles at least through this project.

The primary vehicle for fundraising would be "naming opportunities," a practice common in bricks-and-mortar capital campaigns, in which the names of the largest donors are given to rooms in a new building. She said that several trustees have expressed interest in having a named gallery.

"Everyone is excited about it and it is probably, rather than possibly, going to happen."

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