Straz Center for the Performing Arts — Tampa, Florida

The David A. Straz Jr. Center for the Performing Arts is the large performing arts complex on the Hillsborough River in downtown Tampa, beside the Tampa Riverwalk. The St. Pete Catalyst reported in December 2023 that the campus holds six theaters and is the second largest such complex in the Southeastern United States, with Carol Morsani Hall the largest auditorium. The center also houses Opera Tampa, its in-house professional opera company, and the Patel Conservatory, its school for dance, theater and music.

The Straz is a civic building as much as a stage. The Catalyst states plainly that the building is owned by the City of Tampa, and WUSF reported in 2016 that since its inception in 1987 the center has been a public-private partnership with the land owned by the city of Tampa. A nonprofit organization runs the programming, while city redevelopment money and Hillsborough County funds have helped pay for its newest construction.

The project took more than two decades to start. According to Tampa Historical, it began in 1965 when Mayor Nick Nuccio selected a committee to create a music hall in Tampa, but the idea stalled. It returned in 1979, when Mayor Bob Martinez was reported to be considering two downtown sites, and in 1980 Martinez formed a new committee to plan the center and raise money. A 1981 study by Artec Consultants Inc. documented demand for a performing arts center in the Tampa community.

The site chosen was an abandoned gravel lot in downtown Tampa beside the river. Tampa Historical reports that the effort took over 30 years and $48 million, and that on September 12, 1987 the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center held its grand opening, which it called the Great Gala. In its first season the riverfront center drew more than 500,000 people. In the early 1990s it opened the 130-seat Off-Center Theatre as a venue for local Tampa artists and musicians.

The building carried its original name for more than two decades. Tampa Historical records that in 2009 the David A. Straz Jr. Foundation donated a substantial gift to support the center and its programs, and that the facility was renamed the David A. Straz Jr. Center in thanks. Most Tampa residents and the center itself shorten the name to the Straz or the Straz Center.

The name change did not alter the ownership arrangement. The city remained owner of the land under the downtown Tampa complex, the nonprofit continued to operate it, and the education mission described by Tampa Historical, including free outreach for teachers, summer camps and the Tampa Bay Youth Orchestra, continued under the Straz name.

The stage record that Tampa Historical highlights spans both names. It credits the center with hosting Forever Plaid, which it calls the longest running musical in Florida, and notes that Wonderland: Alice's New Musical Adventure premiered at the Straz in December 2005, six years before the show opened on Broadway in April 2011.

Education is the center's largest program outside its theaters. The St. Pete Catalyst reports that the Pallavi Patel Performing Arts Conservatory was added to the Straz campus in 2004, and 83 Degrees Media describes it as the place where aspiring performing artists receive training in dance, theater and music, noting that it took a 12-year effort to open. Tampa Historical reports that in 2005 the Patel Conservatory received the Annual Future of the Region Award from the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council.

President and CEO Greg Holland told the Catalyst in December 2023 that the Straz education programs are one of the primary arts education programs in Hillsborough County schools, with artists and educators sent into classrooms during the year. He listed a Military Veterans program and summer camps as areas that had outgrown the existing Tampa building, and said that all six theaters were in near-constant use.

Two chief executives have led the Straz across most of its history. 83 Degrees Media reports that President Emerita Judy Lisi retired in 2022 after 30 years with the Tampa performing arts center, and the Catalyst reports that Greg Holland took over as chief executive in 2022 following the retirement of longtime CEO Judith Lisi. In 2016 Lisi told WUSF that she hoped renovations would make the center a bigger draw for young people and for people using the Riverwalk, not only ticket holders.

Holland inherited a plan already under way. In December 2023 he described to the Catalyst a project then budgeted at $80 million, plus $20 million for the endowment, to be drawn from the CRA, the city and the state as well as private and corporate donors. He said moving fine dining into new ground floor space would free the Maestro's Restaurant area for education and for Opera Tampa, whose in-school and community outreach brings Hillsborough County students to rehearsal halls on the Tampa campus. The Catalyst added that the CRA had extended the deadline for the center's final proposal to December 1, 2024 because of escalating costs.

The current construction began on April 7, 2025. WUSF reported that the Straz broke ground that day on a $100 million expansion, a private campaign named Boundless, which adds an indoor and outdoor terrace under an arch leading to the Tampa Riverwalk, a bistro with an outdoor theater on the Hillsborough River, a fine dining restaurant, a cafe and an expanded lounge. The project also expands the Patel Conservatory and updates the lobbies and arrival plaza.

Public money is part of the financing. WUSF reported that the Tampa Community Redevelopment Agency approved $25 million to fund the project in 2021 and that Hillsborough contributed $2.5 million, while CEO Greg Holland said the Straz had raised 92 percent of the funds needed for construction. 83 Degrees reported that the city's share comes from property tax revenues in the Downtown Community Redevelopment Area, and that the expansion will add 30 percent more space to the Patel Conservatory. Mayor Jane Castor and City Council member Gwendolyn Henderson, who chairs the CRA, spoke at the groundbreaking.

The planning record runs back more than fifteen years. WUSF dates the start of planning to 2008 and notes that initial renderings were released in 2016 under Lisi, while Lisi told 83 Degrees the plans stretch back to a 2009 needs assessment, when the Tampa center was already crowded. DLR Group is the design firm and Creative Contractors the builder. WUSF estimated completion in the first quarter of 2027; 83 Degrees reported an expected finish in the summer of 2027.