![]() This proposal comes, however, at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic is ravaging arts groups. Virgin said the project would “fulfill the Mizner Park vision” and “position the city on the national map.” She and Egan spoke of the timing with the Brightline station that may open next year a short distance away. Theater Rendering courtesy of IBI Group, Inc.Council members were skeptical, and the organizers have scaled back greatly in size but less so in ambition. This group first came to the city council three years ago seeking the 10 public acres east of the Spanish River Library. The consortium is confident that the project would not break ground unless 100% of the capital for the project is raised in advance. That takeover was nothing compared to the prospect of a hulk at the north end of Mizner Park. ![]() Ten years ago, the city took over operating the amphitheater after a private group couldn’t make it work. If the project stalled halfway through construction, the city would be left with that shell. During their presentation at Tuesday’s city council workshop, they stressed that the project wouldn’t start until the group had raised enough money.įrom the council’s standpoint, risk is the issue. ![]() Brett Egan is president of DeVos Institute for Arts Management, the group’s consultant. Andrea Virgin, a former dancer who served on the board of Boca Ballet and started a design center in the city, is BRCAI’s president. Organizers designed that timetable around fundraising. The entire project would open two years after that. Work on the redesigned amphitheater would not start until 2024. The consortium proposes a center that “embraces the fundamental changes to artistic performance and expression introduced by advances in technology” and “anticipates and adapts to the realities of an unpredictable and sometimes inhospitable climate, through re-imagining how vast indoor and sheltered spaces are conditioned and experienced.” One space would give visitors the sense of being in the rain without being in the rain. IBI’s website lists projects in the United Kingdom Oman, Israel and the United Arab Emirates, among others.įinally, there’s the language. The renderings are from the architectural firm IBI Group, which is based on Canada. Courtyard Rendering courtesy of IBI Group, Inc.The consortium would build a canopy for the amphitheater-allowing events in bad weather-repurpose the facility and merge with the adjacent land to create a center that has many venues of varying size. Organizers want the city to donate that land and allow them to take over operations of the amphitheater and receive money that the city now spends to stage events and maintain the property. On the east side is a vacant, 1.8-acre parcel that the community redevelopment agency owns. In the middle is the city-owned Mizner Park Amphitheater. The Boca Raton Museum of Art occupies the westernmost of those three pieces of property. The Boca Raton Consortium for Arts and Innovation (BRCAI) wants to transform the north end of Mizner Park into the cultural cluster that residents were promised when Mizner Park opened in 1991. ![]() Start with the price: $101 million for construction and another $19 million for maintenance, an endowment and “working capital.” The proposal for a performing arts center in Boca Raton is ambitious in every way.
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