A famous Sarasota attraction is expanding soon. Here’s where and when

After gaining approval from the city and facing resident appeals, a famous Sarasota attraction is expanding.

After gaining approval from city committees and facing resident appeals, Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, overlooking Sarasota Bay, is officially breaking ground on Phase Two of its masterplan Dec. 2.

Phase Two introduces a learning pavilion and a 35,770-square foot conservatory to Selby’s downtown Sarasota campus, located at 1534 Mound Street, in the Baypoint Park neighborhood. It received final approval from the city’s Planning Board on Aug. 7.

Selby Gardens landed on TIME Magazine’s World’s Greatest Places list in 2024. After the gardens wrapped up Phase One of its masterplan in January 2024, it became the world’s first net-positive energy botanical complex, which means it creates more energy than it consumes, according to the press release.

What is Phase Two bringing to Selby Gardens?

The new conservatory will introduce five rooms with varying plant biomes. Visitors will be able to view plants in a warmer, dryer semiarid house; a warm, wet tropical rainforest house; an exhibition space to continue Selby’s ongoing exhibit programming; a cloud forest montane house; and a jewel house, which showcases miniature, or rare, plants. The conservatory will allow Selby to display 95% of its collection, which the public sees less than 5% of today.

It will also be hurricane resilient, something the Selby team called “both urgent and essential,” in a press release announcing the groundbreaking. The new greenhouses will have hurricane-resilient glass and a polycarbonate roof, which has a glazing that dims light coming in, but also promotes resiliency.

It’s also being moved up to a higher elevation to mitigate flooding, according to botanical horticulture vice president Angel Lara, who spoke with the Herald-Tribune previously about the new buildings coming in Phase Two.

“Our living research collection is a cornerstone of conservation, education, and scientific discovery; safeguarding it from the growing impacts of hurricanes is both urgent and essential to ensure this irreplaceable collection can continue to flourish and inform critical research,” Selby Gardens president and CEO Jennifer O. Rominiecki said in the press release.

Selby has reached 88% of its near-$61 million goal for the second phase, which is set to open in 2028. The groundbreaking ceremony will be held at Selby’s downtown campus on Tuesday, Dec. 2 at 10 a.m.

What did Phase One do and what is Phase Three’s goal?

The first phase, which gained commission approval in 2021, included a welcome center, plant research center and research library, and a Living Energy Access Facility (LEAF) building. The Gardens’ LEAF building serves as a parking garage, gift shop, and supports a 50,000-square-foot solar array.

The LEAF building also houses The Green Orchid, a garden-to-table restaurant open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Mondays and Sundays, and 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday. Run by renowned Sarasota restaurateurs Michael Klauber and Philip Mancini of Michael’s on East fame, the restaurant relies entirely on solar power with an all-electric and induction kitchen.

Phase 1 also included the construction of a 140,000-gallon stormwater vault, which captures stormwater runoff, cleans it and returns it to Sarasota Bay, according to Selby’s website.

Following Phase 2’s completion in 2028, Selby will only have one phase left of its multi-year master plan.

Phase 3’s goal is to restore the Payne Mansion, which was built in the 1930s and serves as the Museum of Botany & the Arts; unify all of Selby’s walking paths; bolster the site’s sea walls; and renovate the docks.