A rift over who would operate a proposed multi-million-dollar performing arts center at The Bay park has cast doubt on whether the project will move forward  with funding and participation from the city of Sarasota.

The Sarasota Performing Arts Foundation, formerly known as the Van Wezel Foundation, launched a formal dispute resolution process this week over proposed changes to a 2022 agreement that the foundation claims would strip it of operational control of the center.

City officials have not addressed that specific allegation but said the proposed revisions are intended to protect taxpayer funds.

In a statement to Suncoast Searchlight and WSLR, City Manager Karie Frilling described recent meetings with the foundation as “collaborative, honest and respectful,” with the goal of moving the project forward while protecting “current and future taxpayer funds.”

But the dispute comes just days before an election that could determine the project’s future. Two City Commission seats are up for grabs Tuesday, and the outcome could shift the balance of support for the project on an already divided board.

The three candidates have differing views on how much the city should spend and how it should control the center. Incumbent Jen Ahearn-Koch and challenger Flo Entler have expressed concerns about the project’s costs, while candidate John Harshman has backed the foundation’s position on operational control.

Harshman also pledged to limit city funding to money generated by a tax increment financing district established six years ago to help fund The Bay and the performing arts center.

“I am not in favor of the city putting any more money into the project,” Harshman told Suncoast Searchlight and WSLR. 

Further complicating matters is Amendment 3, a statewide ballot measure that would expand property tax exemptions and could jeopardize the tax increment financing district.

The dispute, which appears to center around recent amendments for a third party to operate the center, also raises questions about the future of a public-private partnership that has been in limbo since at least spring 2025. That’s when the city and foundation first struggled to agree on terms for moving the project forward. 

City officials received a letter Tuesday from an attorney representing the foundation seeking a meeting to resolve the dispute. 

“The letter came as a surprise to city leadership and the City Commission, given the ongoing discussions between the parties,” Frilling said in the statement to WSLR and Suncoast Searchlight. “The city will take the necessary steps to address the ADR (alternative dispute resolution) process and evaluate the existing agreement and the project moving forward.”

Even if the city funding fails to materialize, the foundation still has plans to move forward.

“The foundation’s vision for a new performing arts center has not changed,” Tania Castroverde Moskalenko, CEO of the Sarasota Performing Arts Foundation, said in a statement.

How we got to this point

The proposed performing arts center has been in the works since at least 2018, when a group of residents proposed an ambitious 53-acre park along Sarasota Bay. The plan was to develop a state-of-the-art park and a new performing arts center that would serve as an upgrade to the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall. 

The public-private partnership saw the creation of The Bay Park Conservancy to oversee the construction of the park, and later, the Sarasota Performing Arts Foundation (SPAF) to raise funds for the new center.

While The Bay has raised tens of millions of dollars from philanthropy and already opened phases of its park to the public, the SPAF’s efforts to build the performing arts center have sputtered, struggling to get local government buy-in for even initial steps to design, much less fully commit to construction.

The project also has gone through several iterations. Once envisioned as a more than $400 million, 2,700 seat facility, the plans since have been scaled back to 2,200 seats with a price tag of anywhere from $260 to $295 million, not counting the cost of new parking garages. 

In 2023, SPAF hired the Renzo Piano Building Workshop, a famed architectural firm with main offices in Italy and France known for its high-tech design.

But in 2025, the City Commission tabled an agreement that would spell out the terms of exactly how the city and the SPAF would build the center together.

Complicating matters, city leadership has been in flux after former City Manager Marlon Brown left his position and the city cycled through interim managers, while fears over Amendment 3 put the project on the back burner.

What the candidates think

With two seats up on the city commission on the ballot in less than a week, Suncoast Searchlight and WSLR spoke with the candidates about how they see the project and where their support lies.

Ahearn-Koch, who received the most votes in the August primary and is a favorite to win, said she could not support the city spending more than $88 million on the project. That figure was determined by former Interim City Manager David Bullock after he analyzed what the city could afford, she said. 

“We said we’d pay half, and $88 million was the max we could pay, but then there was ….  garage, and maintenance, and plus, plus plus,” she said. “We can’t fly to the moon, and we can’t pay that amount of money.”

Entler, who garnered the second-most votes in the primary, also was skeptical the city could fund the project, while st

ill saying it would be “nice” to build.

“I just don’t want to put it on the backs of city taxpayers,” she said of the costs.

However, she believes such a project should be firmly in the control of city officials, noting that the city will be committing both land and money to build it.

That’s the biggest difference between the candidates. 

Harshman, who finished third, said it’s unfair to pull the rug out from under the SPAF. If the foundation is putting up half the cost to build the center, he said, then it should be included in operational decisions.

“The responsibility really stays with the people that have the most skin in the game, and that’s the foundation,” Harshman said. “They’re the ones that are most energized, they’re the ones that are going out to the community and raising money for it.”

Amendment 3 looms over proposed center

The city has funded development at The Bay Park through a tax increment financing district, which is funded through property taxes. 

Amendment 3 would slash the funds available for the proposed performing arts center by increasing homestead exemptions for qualifying primary residences in the taxing district.

The city has not calculated the amendment’s precise impact on the taxing district, but it estimated a loss of up to $5.6 million from its general fund, resulting in reduced services and possible political pressure to funnel money from the taxing district to cover shortfalls.

Even if the city funding doesn’t come through, the foundation still has plans to move forward.

Castroverde Moskalenko, the foundation CEO, said the foundation’s decision to start the dispute resolution process this week followed months of “good-faith efforts” to resolve disputes with the city.

The Sarasota Performing Arts Foundation reported raising “$50 million in private gifts and pledges this past spring” but that continued uncertainty over city support has made it difficult to raise funds.

Castroverde Moskalenko also said that even if the city partnership falters, the foundation hasn’t given up on building the center, even if it’s located somewhere else.

“The board is evaluating whether a viable opportunity exists to advance a performing arts center through a different structure, including potential independent development,” she said in a statement.