As our cover story today reports, local arts groups are holding their collective breath to see how badly property tax reform is going to hurt their government grants. Some may not survive.
But the larger cultural legacies of Tampa's and St. Petersburg's mayors are surviving the threats of steep arts funding cuts. Their plans aren't unscathed, but they remain very much alive.
"We're all going to have to tighten our belts," said Ken Rollins, interim director of the Tampa Museum of Art, which is hoping to build a new facility estimated to cost $33 million in the next two years. "Would it be so severe as to undermine the arts initiatives in these two cities? I don't think so."
In St. Petersburg, plans for an arts hub initiative brokered, in part, by Mayor Rick Baker remain on track. The plan involves a complicated swap between two theaters, the Florida Orchestra and the community college. And the recent announcement by one of the theaters, American Stage, that it would remain in its former cozy building for one more season rather than mount an interim schedule in the Palladium Theater doesn't change the overall plan.
Don Shea, who chairs American Stage's board, said the theater company is saving money by staying put for another year, even after it sold its building for $1 million to a developer. American Stage negotiated a rent for the next year from the new owner that is lower than what it would pay at the larger Palladium — even though that necessitated scrapping a ready-to-cast season of larger plays set for the Palladium.
American Stage still plans to move into a new theater that will be built by St. Petersburg College on a block that faces Williams Park in downtown St. Petersburg. By throwing in with SPC, American Stage managed to get a matching state grant through the state's education budget, a line item that was not vetoed by Gov. Charlie Crist in his record $460 million worth of cuts.
American Stage is even set to announce a $500,000 naming rights sponsorship soon, Shea said, wiping out more of the $2 million it borrowed from SPC for the theater's construction. The $1 million it received from the sale of its old building also went to retire that debt.
Baker's dreams of a larger arts scene downtown may have suffered one setback: Crist vetoed a $500,000 grant meant to pay for architect and design fees for the new Arts Center and Chihuly glass sculpture museum. Arts Center officials said the loss of the design money could delay construction.
In Tampa, Crist helped Pam Iorio's river park dreams by not vetoing a $2 million appropriation for her centerpiece Riverwalk. Jeb Bush vetoed a similar line item last year, and this year's appropriation had been flagged by Florida TaxWatch on its annual "turkeys" list.
The Riverwalk ties into Iorio's River Park arts initiative, which includes new homes for the Tampa Museum of Art and the Children's Museum of Tampa. The new Children's Museum lost a $500,000 cultural facilities grant in the state budget process, but CEO/President Al Najjar said that loss shouldn't impact the museum's timeline. But the extent of cuts because of property tax reform — and the tens of millions of dollars that it could cost local governments — might change the River Park timelines.
"That worries me in the background," Najjar said. "If the hit is huge, we may end up with some delays or some cuts to the park development."
But it seems unlikely that Iorio will strangle her own River Park dreams by cutting city support for the Tampa Museum or Children's Museum too steeply. She has warned all of the city-supported cultural groups that cuts are coming and nothing is sacred, but she recently told me she is trying to prioritize the cuts and is hoping to give all the groups at least 50 cents on the dollar.
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This article appears in May 30 – Jun 5, 2007.
