SARASOTA, Fla. — Sarasota leaders have taken another significant step toward the realization of the city's African-American Cultural Arts Center and History Museum.
At a meeting Monday, city commissioners voted unanimously to have city staff work with the non-profit Sarasota African-American Cultural Coalition (SAACC) to iron out an agreement to achieve the plans.
"We began putting the resources together in 2015, so they're completed and this is the next logical step," Vickie Oldham said. "The timing is right and it is an important time because this conversation is happening."
Oldham is the director of Newtown Alive and the president and CEO of SAACC.
"Very exciting, a unanimous vote was very encouraging, exciting to get, I don't think I was expecting unanimous but I loved it," Oldham said.
Board members of the SAACC made a presentation to the commission where they requested the use of a 1.3 acre parcel of land in Newtown.
The land is located on the corner of Orange Avenue and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Way along the neighborhood's business corridor. As part of its vision for the museum, the organization wants to temporarily move the historic Leonard Reid house onto the land to become the first home of the museum.
In the summer, the city of Sarasota, a local developer, Newtown Alive and SAACC reached an agreement to move the house and turn it into Sarasota's first center honoring the legacy and impact of its Black community.
The plans are outlined in the Newtown Community Redevelopment Area Master Plan and were previously approved by Newtown Community Redevelopment Agency.
"People are going to see things really really begin to take off when that historic Leonard Reid house is moved out of its present location in the Overtown area near downtown," Oldham said. "It's going to move onto a piece of this parcel of city-owned land and we will begin programming in partnership with arts and cultural organizations in Sarasota once that house moves. It's a temporary location but we can do mighty things."
But before that can happen, city staff would have to do due-diligence consultations with board members and legal teams for the non-profit to build a road map for the shape and outlook of the project as a whole. Monday's vote by the commission sets that in motion.
"What we really did was to empower our staff to start negotiating with their leadership team, to really hammer out the details of what the cultural center will look like, what it will need, the business plan, and really a plan for success, and then it would come back to us," Sarasota Mayor Hagen Brody said.
The non-profit plans to raise $12 million for the entire museum project in different phases.
City leaders hope when the project is completed it will showcase Sarasota's Black heritage and boost tourism to the area. The meeting drew a full house to the chamber where 32 community residents and students spoke for 3 minutes to lend their voices of support to sway the commission.
"I think that this would be a real anchor for that area, but more importantly, it is really a sense of pride in the community behind this project and we can see that in the turnout. We have people from all generations, all works of life that are coming out in support of this project," Brody said.
Leaders also hope to see the Leonard Reid house moved to the site by this fall.
"We are on a roll and I want the community to just keep on rolling with me," Oldham said.
