The Tampa Art Museum is expanding again. Less than a year after the renovation plans were disclosed, the museum announced a major expansion.
In January, the museum revealed renovation plans that would expand its education programs and gallery space. The renovations began in June, with an expected completion date of July 2022.
New York-based Weiss / Manfredi Architecture / Landscape / Urbanism is designing the expansion and renovation of the existing museum building.
With the expansion, the total area of the museum will increase from 69,000 to 125,000 square feet. With an expected completion date of 2024, the expansion will add approximately 51,000 square feet of new space along the Hillsborough River to the 25,000 square foot renovation.
More than 80 percent of the $ 80 million budget for current renovations and future expansion will be privately funded by the museum’s board of trustees, the board of trustees of the Tampa Museum of Art Foundation, and donations from community members. The Hillsborough County Commission has committed to providing funding for the project.
For the total campaign of $ 100 million, a matching donation was made by a stakeholder in part to invest in the museum’s endowment fund to enhance the museum’s programs and exhibits.
Jerry Divers, chairman of the campaign cabinet and chairman of the Tampa Museum of Art Foundation, said in a telephone interview that the expansion will put Tampa on the map and may merge the art community.
The $ 68 million expansion, which will occur after the renovations, includes a four-story glazed cantilever structure that spans the Hillsborough River. It will include a roof terrace and provide an enclosed space for special events.
Michael Tomor, Penny and Jeff Vinik, the museum’s executive director, said the architects and building committee decided to go horizontally with the expansion as a way to stand out on the Riverwalk amid the vertical skyscrapers of the region.
A key part of the expansion is the museum’s connection to the Riverwalk. The museum will redevelop its site at Curtis Hixon Park, including pedestrian plazas, landscaped architecture and renovated walkways and landscaping on Cass Street. This work was also designed by Weiss / Manfredi and is partially funded by a grant from the Community Revitalization Zone Tax Fund.
“It’s not just our responsibility to ourselves, but it’s really to the whole region to make it a stronger and more accessible area for the Riverwalk, for the park and for the community in general that comes to the museum, ”said Tomor.
Public artwork will be placed around the exterior of the museum, Tomor said, so that people can access it even when the museum is not open, creating a public meeting place. Almost 12,000 square feet of space will be dedicated to a new covered entrance, lobby, store and café.
Exhibition and collection space will grow from 14,800 to over 43,000 square feet. Four galleries will be added to the second floor of the existing museum and the atrium will become a sculpture gallery. The additional space will allow the museum to keep works from its permanent collection on display year round.
Event space will triple from 7,200 to 25,600 square feet. This will allow the museum to organize even more events (currently between 150 and 170 events per year), to host dinners for 500 guests and to rent the space. Tomor said the money earned from these events will help the museum organize bigger and bigger exhibitions.
The expansion of the educational space from 1,400 to over 12,000 square feet was part of the momentum of the renovation. It includes a new auditorium and an educational wing with classrooms, a hall, orientation spaces and a separate entrance. This will allow the museum to quadruple the number of students it welcomes each year from 6,000 to 24,000.
Culinary arts classes will be added to the education program and will take place on the roof of the third floor of the new structure.
The consideration of flooding has been taken into account for the project, as has sustainability. Tomor said the museum is looking to meet the American Institute of Architects’ 2030 projection for net zero emissions on sustainable architecture.
“We want to be a part of this conversation and have the best sustainable architecture as well as beautiful architecture,” he said.
