On the verge of its 40th year as a Sarasota cultural icon, Florida Studio Theatre recently announced a multi-year capital improvement campaign to renovate its 6,000 square foot Gompertz Theatre and construct an 18,000 square foot addition that will contain two new theatre spaces — a 130-seat cabaret theater and a 100-seat lab theater for play readings, classes, and experimental works.

The new building will be constructed on the current parking lot located at First Street and Cocoanut Avenue. The project, ticketed at $5.6 million (of which $4.4 million has already been raised, thanks in part to $1 million donations each from Dennis and Graci McGillicuddy, and Richard and Betty Hegner), will commence in phases and is targeted for completion by January of 2015. The $5.6 million construction campaign includes $3 million for renovation of the Gompertz, $1 million to pay for the property, $1 million for the theater’s endowment, and $633,000 for capital reserves.

“This is a glorious enhancement,” Sarasota Mayor Suzanne Atwell told FST senior staff and board members at a special event held in FST’s Keating Theater, where the project was announced. “You are a critical component to an ever-emerging, dynamic downtown that embraces pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use, and a diverse population. As your mission statement touts, you’re a positive, vital, change agent into this community. You are about affordability, access, education, and empowering our youth. It is terribly exciting and a testament to your reputation in the community.”

Artistic Director Richard Hopkins maintained that the entire project was driven by need.

“We’re at a place in our growth and our history where we need to grow again,” Hopkins said. “The fact is, this theater has been playing to 100 percent capacity in the winter season — October to May — for eight years. We’ve grown our subscriber base as large as we can grow it. And we know we can grow more.”

The Gompertz Theatre was taken over by FST in 2002, when the former Palm Tree Playhouse was bought with a $1 million gift from Leila Gompertz and a grant from the Florida Arts Council. The new Gompertz will grow in size from 160 seats to 230 seats, including an increase in the stage area by eight feet in depth and four feet in width along with a stage left wing. Additional improvements will include:

•    Expanded interior lobby space
•    Two small retail spaces in what is now the Gompertz main entrance area
•    New large restrooms
•    A full service café and bar
•    Covered veranda seating and street-level seating
•    Increased accessible seating for handicapped patrons
•    A new actors’ loft featuring new dressing rooms, restrooms, green room, and additional facilities

Hopkins said the Gompertz’s bar, lobby café and terrace areas would accommodate about 100 patrons. Once that was all worked out, he added, FST’s board turned its attention to the overextended Goldstein Cabaret.

“We know we can grow that audience,” Hopkins said. “So we thought why not build another cabaret theater?”

That’s when plans for the new 130-seat cabaret theater took shape, including a full-service kitchen and multiple entrances.

“Once we did that, we filled in the last piece of the puzzle with the lab theater,” he said. “There we can do experimental theater, improv, new play readings, things of that nature.”

Hopkins reiterated that the whole project would unfold in phases, roughly along the following timeline:

•    January 4, 2012 — Ground-breaking at the Gompertz Theatre
•    July 11, 2012 — Performances begin in the renovated Gompertz Theatre of the second play in FST’s 2012 Summer Season
•    November 2012 — Grand opening of the new Gompertz Theatre, cafe, and lobby space
•    January 2014 — Grand opening of the new cabaret theatre space
•    January 2015 — Grand opening of the new lab theatre space

“All of these dates are subject to change,” Hopkins said. “The bottom line for us is that we can move forward knowing that the next 10-20 years are being taken care of by a facility that we can grow into.”

The New Gompertz Theatre Project will allow FST to meet the demands of its programs and to reach even more of Sarasota’s broadening audience. Those demands could increase FST’s attendance from 160,000 people to a projected 250,000 people per year, according to Associate Director Kate Alexander, who saluted the patrons whose donations made the project possible.

“Most of the people in this room have such a deep conscience that they have moved beyond selfish living into giving to the community,” Alexander said. “We’re going to serve up to a quarter of a million people pretty soon. And it’s because of you, and you, and you — examples of what it truly means to be a pillar of the community.”