Why Coral Springs Is Moving Its Art Museum Downtown |
This fall, someone walking through downtown Coral Springs may be able to stop for coffee, step into an art gallery and find themselves looking at an original work by Pablo Picasso.
They won't need to buy a ticket. And they won't need to drive to Miami or Fort Lauderdale.
The Coral Springs Museum of Art is preparing to move from its longtime home on Coral Springs Drive to a new gallery at the corner of Sample Road and University Drive.
The roughly $3.4 million project could easily be viewed as another downtown relocation. But one detail makes the move particularly interesting.
The museum isn't getting a bigger exhibition space. Its new gallery will actually be slightly smaller.
What Coral Springs appears to be gaining instead is something harder to measure in square feet.
From Hidden Gem to Downtown Destination
The city says one goal of the relocation is to change the museum's perception as a "hidden gem" and establish it as a more prominent and accessible destination for art and culture.
Location is central to that strategy.
The current museum sits at 2855 Coral Springs Drive as part of the Coral Springs Center for the Arts complex.
The new gallery will sit at Sample Road and University Drive, in the middle of the downtown area Coral Springs has spent years developing into a place where more people live, eat, shop and spend time.
That changes the relationship between the museum and its surroundings.
Visiting the existing museum generally requires deciding to go to the museum. A downtown gallery has the potential to work differently.
Someone might encounter it while having coffee. While eating downtown. While attending another event. Or simply while spending time in the area.
The difference sounds subtle. For a cultural institution, it can be significant.
A Smaller Gallery Designed to Do More
The new exhibition space will be slightly smaller than the museum's existing gallery, according to the city. But it will include movable walls and a multipurpose area intended to make the space more flexible.
There will also be an adjacent coffee shop operated separately from the museum and a retail store offering works from local artisans, books, gifts and museum merchandise.
The museum plans workshops, after-hours events and experiences connected to exhibitions.
Admission will remain free.
Taken together, those choices suggest that the relocation isn't primarily about creating more museum.
It's about creating more ways for people to interact with it. That distinction becomes even clearer when considering what's happening to the museum's existing home.
The Old Museum Isn't Going Away
Moving the gallery downtown doesn't mean Coral Springs is abandoning the existing facility.
Art classes will continue at the Coral Springs Drive location, using its established drawing, painting, mixed-media and ceramics studios.
The former gallery space is expected to become a rentable venue for private and community events, including weddings and bar and bat mitzvahs, creating another potential source of activity and revenue.
Meanwhile, the downtown location becomes the museum's public exhibition face.
In effect, functions that once occupied one cultural facility will be distributed between two places serving different purposes.
One remains focused heavily on making and learning. The other becomes more focused on seeing, experiencing and gathering.
That's an interesting evolution for a community institution that has spent years operating largely from one location.
Why Picasso Matters
Coral Springs isn't planning a quiet opening for the new gallery. Its inaugural exhibition is scheduled to feature **57 original prints by Pablo Picasso**, created between 1923 and 1972.
The exhibition includes etchings, lithographs and linocuts, along with a rare cancelled copper printing plate.
For residents, the immediate attraction is obvious.
Original works by one of the world's best-known artists will be available to see locally, with free museum admission.
But Picasso also serves another purpose in this story. An internationally recognizable exhibition gives Coral Springs an opportunity to introduce residents to the new gallery as a destination from the moment it opens.
The question is what happens after the opening exhibition leaves. If the relocation works as intended, the museum's greater visibility could make art less dependent on residents deliberately seeking it out.
It becomes something they can encounter while doing something else.
When Culture Becomes Part of the Trip
For years, Coral Springs has been trying to establish a more recognizable downtown around Sample Road and University Drive. Much of the attention naturally goes to buildings, restaurants, residences and businesses.
But successful gathering places need reasons for people to be there. And preferably, more than one.
A restaurant gives someone a reason to visit for dinner. A coffee shop gives someone another reason in the morning. Housing brings people into the area every day. Events create occasional bursts of activity.
A museum adds something different: a destination that can be visited repeatedly as exhibitions and programming change.
Put enough different reasons to visit within walking distance of one another, and the experience of a place can begin to change.
People don't necessarily arrive for one purpose and immediately leave. They have reasons to stay.
More Than a Change of Address
None of this guarantees that relocating the museum will transform downtown activity.
A prominent location doesn't automatically create an audience, and a museum still has to give residents reasons to return. But the choices Coral Springs is making are revealing.
The city is investing roughly $3.4 million in moving the gallery even though the exhibition space will be somewhat smaller.
It is keeping admission free. It is pairing the location with coffee, retail and additional programming. It is preserving classes at the existing facility rather than trying to squeeze every museum function downtown.
And it is opening the new gallery with an internationally recognizable exhibition.
Those decisions suggest that the value of a cultural institution isn't being measured only by the amount of space inside its walls. Its location within community life matters, too.
For years, the Coral Springs Museum of Art could reasonably be described as a place residents had to know was there.
This fall, Coral Springs is trying something different.
It's putting the museum where considerably more people might have a reason to find it.
Do you think moving the museum downtown will make you more likely to visit? Share your thoughts below.
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Editor’s note: This piece was selected and adapted for Coral Springs Insider to provide local context and perspective on an issue relevant to our community. |
4 Comments
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If this museum is in the existing apartment complex area, then I would question the access to parking. This is not an easy area to navigate and it is several blocks from “the walk “ it’s not something we can just easily park and walk into, as the existing space is. I don’t think I would ever go there because of the inconvenience. What is happening to the semi torn down retail spaces across the street? The museum would be better off there with accessible parking and a variety of upscale stores and restaurants than it would in the apartment building complex.
Thanks for your comment, Diane. I had a similar reaction the first few times I saw those tall buildings at Sample and University: “Where's the parking?!” After visiting downtown a number of times, though, I discovered there's more nearby parking than it appears from the street. Behind the Modera complex is the city's free public parking garage, and there's also the Northwest Regional Library across the street, some street parking, and other nearby options. So there is a little walking involved—maybe comparable to taking an outer parking spot at a mall—but definitely no need to park at The Walk. Yikes! That said, I think you raise an interesting point: having parking nearby and feeling like a destination is easy to access aren't necessarily the same thing. If people driving by don't immediately understand where they're supposed to park, that perception could matter for the museum and downtown generally. And the retail space across the street is a good question. That's something worth keeping an eye on.
Not only do I question why the Art Museum with a top location with plenty of free parking would improve attendance by relocating to a congested area with no free parking. I actually question why the city would focus its attention on Sample and University, one of the busiest intersections in town. The new restaurants there are nice, but not preemptive to what is offered elsewhere. And again, parking garage parking is not an advantage when free surface level parking is available everywhere else. It's a destination for those who choose to live in the two apartment buildings, but not a viable attraction for everyone else.
Thanks for the comment. I think you’re making an important distinction between parking being available and parking being convenient. There is free public garage parking downtown, but you're right that pulling into a surface lot directly in front of a destination is a different experience. What I find particularly interesting is your larger question: Will people who don't live downtown see this area as a destination worth going to? That's probably something we'll only really know as more of downtown is completed and people begin using it. But you've now given me something else to watch as the area develops.