Uncertain future for iconic Sarasota building unfolds<\/p>\n Empty downtown Sarasota building awaits transformation into mixed-use campus by Benderson Development.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/media-video><\/div>\n After\u00a0gaining\u00a0approval\u00a0from\u00a0city committees<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0facing resident appeals<\/a>, Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, overlooking Sarasota Bay, is officially breaking ground on Phase Two of its masterplan Dec. 2.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Phase Two\u00a0introduces a learning pavilion and a 35,770-square foot conservatory to Selby\u2019s downtown Sarasota campus, located at 1534 Mound Street, in the Baypoint Park neighborhood. It received final approval from the city\u2019s Planning Board\u00a0on\u00a0Aug. 7.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Selby Gardens landed on TIME Magazine’s World’s Greatest Places list in 2024<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s ongoing exhibit programming; a cloud forest montane house; and a jewel house, which\u00a0showcases\u00a0miniature, or rare, plants.\u00a0The conservatory will allow Selby to display 95%\u00a0of its collection, which the public sees\u00a0less than\u00a05% of today.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n It will also be hurricane resilient, something the Selby team called \u201cboth urgent and essential,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n It\u2019s\u00a0also being moved up to a higher elevation to mitigate flooding, according to botanical horticulture vice president Angel Lara, who spoke with the\u00a0Herald-Tribune previously<\/a>\u00a0about the new buildings coming in Phase Two.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOur 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,\u201d Selby Gardens president and CEO Jennifer O.\u00a0Rominiecki\u00a0said in the press release.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Selby has reached 88% of its near-$61\u00a0million\u00a0goal for the second phase, which is set to open in\u00a02028.\u00a0The groundbreaking ceremony will be held at Selby\u2019s\u00a0downtown\u00a0campus\u00a0on Tuesday, Dec. 2 at 10 a.m.<\/p>\n The\u00a0first 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. \u00a0<\/p>\n The LEAF building also houses The Green Orchid<\/a>, 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<\/a>, the restaurant relies entirely on solar power with an all-electric and induction kitchen.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s\u00a0website.\u00a0<\/p>\n Following Phase 2’s completion\u00a0in 2028, Selby will only have one phase left of its multi-year master plan. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n 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\u2019s walking paths;\u00a0bolster the site\u2019s sea walls;\u00a0and\u00a0renovate the docks.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ella Thompson covers real estate and development for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Contact her at\u00a0<\/em>ethompson@gannett.com<\/em><\/a>. Support local\u00a0journalism\u00a0by\u00a0<\/em>subscribing today.<\/em><\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.heraldtribune.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After gaining approval from the city and facing resident appeals, a famous Sarasota attraction is expanding. Uncertain future for iconic Sarasota building unfolds Empty downtown Sarasota building awaits transformation into mixed-use campus by Benderson Development. After\u00a0gaining\u00a0approval\u00a0from\u00a0city committees\u00a0and\u00a0facing resident appeals, Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, overlooking Sarasota Bay, is officially breaking ground on Phase Two of its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2159615,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[39915,349726,350852,6297,324465,21739,344928,22764,350847,211924,21738,239343,239453,346464,361777,361778,345720,23139,239344],"class_list":["post-2159614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-affiliate","tag-construction","tag-construction-u0026-maintenance","tag-eamotion","tag-gardens","tag-local","tag-local-affiliate-travel","tag-local-news","tag-maintenance","tag-neutral","tag-news","tag-overall","tag-overall-neutral","tag-parks","tag-regional","tag-regional-parks-u0026-gardens","tag-sarasota","tag-travel","tag-u0026"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/A-famous-Sarasota-attraction-is-expanding-soon-Heres-where-and-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2159614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2159614"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2159614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2159616,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2159614\/revisions\/2159616"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2159615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2159614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2159614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2159614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nAfter gaining approval from the city and facing resident appeals, a famous Sarasota attraction is expanding.<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
![\"play\"](\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/appservices\/universal-web\/universal\/icons\/icon-play-alt-white.svg\"){kind=icon}
<\/div>\n<\/div>\nWhat is Phase Two bringing to Selby Gardens?<\/h2>\n
What did Phase One do and what is Phase Three’s goal?<\/h2>\n