Latest distinction comes as Gardens prepares to embark on Phase Two
The Wall Street Journal has recognized Phase One of the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens Downtown Sarasota Campus Master Plan on its list of the Best Architecture of 2024, Selby Gardens announced this week.
In fact, a Gardens news release pointed out, Phase One was among only five projects the publication put in the spotlight for this year.
The Wall Street Journal distinction comes a little more than four months after Time magazine revealed that Selby Gardens was one of only eight places in the United States that made its annual list of the World’s Greatest Places, as the Gardens announced in late July.
Time’s annual list “highlights 100 extraordinary destinations around the globe,” a news release explained.
The Dec. 9 announcement from Selby Gardens noted that Wall Street Journal architecture critic Michael Lewis wrote the following in his article: “Many of the year’s most successful projects — including New York’s Far Rockaway Library and the expansion of Florida’s Marie Selby Botanical Gardens — struck pleasingly human notes for all their impressive scale.”
Lewis continued, “The Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, occupying a luxuriant 15-acre site in Sarasota, Fla., have added three new buildings that encompass 188,000 square feet, more than 10 times the size of the Far Rockaway Library, but they also show a pleasing human touch. The centerpiece is the Morganroth Family Living Energy Access Facility (LEAF), which according to the Selby contains ‘a garden-to-plate restaurant, a new gift shop, vertical gardens, and a nearly 50,000-square-foot solar array’; one has to look twice before realizing that all these functions are wrapped around an unexpectedly pleasant parking garage. The Selby specializes in ‘air plants,’ or epiphytes, that depend on other plants for their support, which does not suggest a massive architecture rooted firmly in the ground.”
Lewis then noted, “When I visited earlier this year, I was struck by the airy lightness of the entrance canopy, which was made as open as possible, with no sullen turnstile, and wondered how it would hold up in a hurricane. Now we know. Hurricane Helene, which buffeted Sarasota on Sept. 27, left the Selby unscathed, including its irreplaceable plant research center that was intended to be hurricane-resilient. The project is a collaboration between Overland Partners, a firm of Texas-based architects, and OLIN, the landscape architects.”
The Wall Street Journal recognition comes just a couple of weeks after Selby Gardens reported that it had secured more than 66% of the funds it needed to proceed with Phase Two of its Downtown Sarasota Campus Master Plan. The capital goal for that initiative is $60.9 million, the Gardens staff said; $40.3 million had been raised. The total included an anonymous, $15-million commitment, a news release pointed out.
In a Facebook post, the Gardens reported that the groundbreaking for Phase Two is expected take place at the end of 2025, with completion by the end of 2027.
One of the primary features of Phase Two will be construction of a new Conservatory Complex, the Gardens staff has pointed out. It “will be the crown jewel of the Downtown Sarasota campus — a stunning crystal palace filled with more than 20,000 plants from Selby Gardens’ living research collections (including the best scientifically documented collections of orchids and bromeliads in the world),” a late-November news release explained.
“Today, the public can see less than 5% of Selby Gardens’ research collections,” that release pointed out; the new Conservatory Complex will make nearly 100% of Selby Gardens’ “world-renowned collected plants visible to the public.”
The cumulative total of funds raised for Phases One and Two had reached the $103-million mark in late November, the Gardens noted, “including nearly $8 million for endowment with 99% percent of all funds coming from private philanthropy.”
Responding to the latest distinction for the downtown Sarasota destination, Jennifer O. Rominiecki, president and CEO of Selby Gardens, said in the Dec. 9 news release, “On behalf of the Board of Trustees and all of us at Selby Gardens, we are truly honored to be recognized by The Wall Street Journal as one of the best architectural achievements of 2024. This acknowledgment is a testament to the vision, innovation, and dedication of our team, as well as the incredible support from our community. As we celebrate this achievement, we remain focused on resiliency and the future — with plans for continued growth as global leaders for sustainability and the expansion of Phase Two of Selby Gardens’ Master Plan. Our commitment to blending innovation with nature remains at the heart of everything we do, and we look forward to the next chapter in our journey.”
The full Wall Street Journal article is available to subscribers at this link: https://www.wsj.com/style/design/the-best-architecture-of-2024-accentuate-the-personal-c9719021.