Tampa has always been a vibrant tapestry of creativity. Now, the Tampa Arts Alliance aims to elevate the city’s artistic ecosystem to new heights with an arts center in the heart of downtown.
The nonprofit Arts Alliance launched in 2021 with a mission to cultivate and promote the arts and build Tampa's reputation as a vibrant city of the arts. The downtown arts center is the right project and the ideal location to take that mission to the next level.
The Arts Alliance will showcase and strengthen the city's diverse arts community in a 5,000 square-foot space on the ground floor of an office tower in the core of downtown's central business district. Boston-based real estate investor Farley White Interests donated the space in the Fifth Third Center at Kennedy Boulevard and Tampa Street through a multi-year, rent-free lease valued at $1 million.
Tampa Arts Alliance Executive Director Michele Smith says it’s a unique opportunity that “places the arts in a new environment, the ground-floor of a Class A office tower on the corner of ‘Main and Main.’" In that corporate setting, the Arts Alliance will “create opportunities for innovation across industries,” Smith says.
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Tampa Arts Alliance/The Beck GroupA rendering of the downtown arts centerThe Arts Alliance envisions the center as a vibrant creative hub that showcases regional talent, connects and represents the thriving local arts community, and creates experiences that build an appreciation of the arts in downtown’s 60,000 workers, 20,000 residents, and millions of annual visitors.
“We just want visitors to feel in awe of how much we have going on here,” Smith says. “Our recent art directory noted over 200 cultural spaces to visit in Tampa. We have 15 museums, 50-plus artist studios, a huge theater population, educational venues, and independent art stores. We want that to be so clearly presented that when people come in, they're going to be like, ‘Wait, all that's going on here in Tampa? That's amazing.’ We want to inspire curiosity. That’s what this center is all about.”
With a site secured, the Arts Alliance has launched a capital campaign, “Centering the Arts in Tampa,” to raise $1.2 million by November 1st for buildout and programming. Architecture and commercial construction firm The Beck Group will work to bring the Alliance’s vision for the center to life. The planned opening is March 2026.
Advancing the arts
Ultimately, the Arts Alliance’s goal is to establish the center as a resource that engages, energizes, and serves the arts community while connecting the larger Tampa community to the arts. The center aims to elevate local artists by showcasing their work in a professional, corporate setting. This offers emerging artists who may have previously only exhibited in informal venues the opportunity to be seen in a more curated, high-profile environment.
The vision for the downtown arts center goes beyond providing walls to display visual art. In addition to a gallery, the flexible space can be reconfigured for special events, presentations, and a temporary stage.
“We want to represent the entire arts ecosystem,” Smith says. “That means across several different forms of art. Obviously the space lends itself well to visual art, 2D, and 3D pieces. But we also want to bring more awareness to our literary arts, our performing arts theaters, film, every aspect of the arts. We want to have some kind of representation for them in this space, but then also representation that really reflects the population.”
This dedication to diversity and authenticity in curation is rooted in Tampa’s history, Smith says.
“We’ve got a very progressive city that is diverse, and we have a lot of different cultures,” she says. “We have a lot of different voices, a lot of different affiliations, and to create a space where all of that is reflected in the curation of exhibits, in the arts that are promoted, is really important to how we operate. It has been from day one.”
Cultivating collaboration downtown
The downtown center is envisioned as a nexus of collaboration among artists, arts and community organizations, and businesses. The ground-floor space in the core of the city’s central business district is a prime location for the Arts Alliance’s ongoing efforts to build collaborations with businesses outside the arts and spotlight and enhance the role the arts play in industries like real estate development, technology, and healthcare.
"We’ve created a lot of momentum for the arts in Tampa by being connectors and conveners, bringing people together, creating conversations, and working across industries,” Smith says.
The Arts Alliance sees the center as a vehicle for connecting and showcasing the entire arts ecosystem -- from downtown cultural institutions like the Straz Center for the Performing Arts, the Tampa Museum of Art, and the Tampa Theatre to small community groups and emerging spaces.
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A December 2023 arts pop-up at Poe Plaza put on by the Tampa Arts Alliance and Visit Tampa Bay
Downtown is also fertile ground for creating public art activations in collaboration with organizations like the Tampa Downtown Partnership, Visit Tampa Bay, and the Gasparilla Festival of the Arts. Opportunities abound thanks to downtown's plethora of parks and public spaces. For example, Lykes Gaslight Square Park is right across the street from the arts center's space in Fifth Third Center.
The downtown location also places the arts amid the planners and decision-makers at Tampa City Hall, the County Center, the Tampa Bay Economic Development Council, and the Tampa Bay Chamber of Commerce. That gives the arts visibility and a voice when government and civic leaders are making crucial policy and funding decisions.
“We hope having one space that stresses and promotes the entire ecosystem will have a positive impact on policymaking, on funding,” Smith says. “Public funding is so important for the arts. And we're at a crossroads where it's tenuous across the board. It's going to take working with our civic leaders, with our planners, with our developers, with our industry leaders, to begin to make sure that we bring attention to the value of the arts here, that we have a seat at the table when it comes to planning.”
Artspace Tampa
When the Tampa Arts Alliance formed in 2021, local arts leaders asked the nonprofit to take on Artspace Tampa, a live-work affordable housing community for artists planned in Ybor City, through pre-development. The Arts Alliance has completed that process, securing a site donated by Ybor City real estate developer and investor Darryl Shaw, and raising $750,000 for planning and design through private fundraising and funding from Hillsborough County and the City of Tampa.
Smith says the Arts Alliance is, for the time being, shifting its focus to the unique opportunity presented by Farley White’s donation of space for a downtown arts center. She says Minnesota-based Artspace Projects, the national nonprofit developer of workforce and affordable housing for artists, can run with the resources the Arts Alliance has secured to carry the project through the multi-year process of design, seeking federal funding for construction, and building Artspace Tampa.
Smith says a project like Artspace is vital because Tampa's arts ecosystem can't survive and thrive if its artists can't afford to live and work there. Together with Artspace Projects and local arts leaders, the Arts Alliance looks forward to "realizing the vision of affordable housing for Tampa's artists," Smith says.
For more information, go to Centering the Arts in Tampa