An examination of the complex, eight-year process that brought the old Dalí museum to USFSP highlights the interconnectedness of the St. Petersburg government, the Salvador Dalí Museum and the university.
Former St. Petersburg mayor Rick Baker was hired by USF after leaving office in 2010; USF President Judy Genshaft joined the Dalí’s board of trustees between 2004 and 2005; and Hank Hine, the executive director of the museum, led the USF Graphicstudio from 1994 until he took over the position at the Dalí in 2002.
Genshaft’s influence on the process was minimal, said USF Public Affairs Manager Lara Wade. With issues regarding the sale of the old museum to USF, Genshaft either recused herself or did not attend the meetings, according to her recollection and standard practices, wrote USFSP Communications Director Tom Scherberger in an email.
While the purchase managed and negotiated by USF system resources and personnel, the driving force was always at USFSP. The prime mover on campus was former chief executive Karen White, Wade said.
White referred a request for comment to the current USFSP financial staff and did not respond to a follow-up email.
The deal was complex, taking more than eight years from ideation to completion and involved a bureaucratic ballet as USF, USFSP, the city of St. Petersburg and the Salvador Dalí Museum worked out the details and then found the money to pay for it.
The university bought the former museum, now named Harbor Hall, for $6 million, a figure based on a 2004 appraisal commissioned by the city. It determined the city-owned land to be worth $3.5 million and the museum-owned building to be worth $2.4 million. The parking lot added another $100,000.
The plan had always been for the Dalí to receive the value of the land in the transaction, said former mayor Rick Baker, now the USF director of innovation. A tenet of the “Baker plan” was waterfront revitalization, including the rehabilitation or replacement of the Bayfront Center, the eventual home of the new Dalí museum (see also: Museum sought to protect collection).
The goal of the original 1981 lease of city property to the Dalí museum was to provide a permanent home for the art collection now valued between $500 million and $700 million. If for any reason the city could no longer honor the contract, the city was required to provide an equivalent space and build an equivalent building east of Fourth Street within a half-mile radius of the Poynter Park location.
The museum presented a plan to the city in 2004 outlining costs and benefits of a move to the location of the Bayfront Center arena, which was slated for demolition. Despite the city signing a favorable 99-year lease to the Dalí for the new location next to the Mahaffey Theater, the city did not re-claim the value of the Poynter Park land as a condition of the new lease.
A leasehold interest is essentially the value of the agreement held by the lease holder. Since the Poynter Park property was leased to the Dalí with a nominal yearly rent of $1, the building was given to the museum by the city in 1981 and the property lease was extended to 2072, the Dalí’s leasehold interest was close to the entire value of the property, building and improvements combined.
The deal made sense for the city, said Bruce Grimes, the St. Petersburg director of real estate and property management, because the museum was offering to build a new $30 million facility near the heart of downtown. The city is also serious in its intent to remain the permanent home of the collection and the museum has had a significant economic and cultural impact on the area, he added.
The plan had broad support from business groups, downtown development groups and the Tampa Bay Times editorial board. For USFSP, it provided a rare opportunity for a large, contiguous expansion of the campus, said Communications Director Tom Scherberger.
“[The Dalí museum] is really an asset to the city,” said former USFSP chief executive and current College of Education dean Bill Heller. “Most people would give a right arm for it.”
The conversation to move the museum actually started in the early 1990s when Heller was the chief executive of the campus, he said. After a failed plan for USFSP to acquire the former Bayfront Center arena to build a convention center and student union, the Dalí finally found the downtown location it had been seeking for nearly a decade.
“It was the right deal at the right time for the right reasons,” Heller said.
For the deal to go forward, a pair of referendums was added to the November 2004 ballot allowing the transfer of Poynter Park to the university and a long-term lease for the museum’s new location.
City voters overwhelmingly supported the initiatives, but working out the particulars of the three-sided deal took another three years, Grimes said.
An agreement between the university and the museum was finally signed on Nov. 29, 2007, one day before the referendums would have expired.
Funding continued to be a problem for both the university and the museum. USFSP’s requests for money through a state program that matched tax money with private donations never got enough support from the budget-constrained Board of Governors.
Through big donors, the sale of the old museum and support from the state, county and the city, the Dalí managed to complete the new museum and officially open on Jan. 11, 2011, at 11:11 a.m.
The university intended the old museum to be the home of the College of Business, but in Jan. 2010, USFSP Regional Chancellor Margaret Sullivan informed the business faculty of a change in plans, said Associate Professor of Economics Richard B. Smith.
The planned $4.5 million renovation that would have transformed the museum into a visually consistent, expanded and well-equipped education facility was shelved and the building was offered to the journalism and media studies and graphic design departments.
Journalism department chair Robert Dardenne and the faculty chose, however, to keep the department at its current location in the Florida Center for Teachers. Instead, a new department consisting of graphic design, English and composition programs was created and moved into the renovated building.
To obtain the information in this article, The Crow’s Nest analyzed documents obtained from the city of St. Petersburg, Pinellas County, the University of South Florida and the IRS. The Salvador Dalí Museum, Inc. has no obligation to provide documentation of its decisions and chooses not to do so.
