2018 was Southwest Florida arts groups' year for building, rebuilding, getting ready for building

Call it a blueprint year. Arts organizations added more drawings to their plans, checked the diagrams on what was already planned or shelved their plans for a better day.

Few organizations cruised out of 2018 unchanged, with Hurricane Irma still the homewrecker, steering some of that in its damage to The Baker Museum and the G&L Theatre.

But there were blueprints for new institutions: Gulfshore Playhouse, working with a $10 million matching grant from Patty and Jay Baker in 2016 that later became a full donation, unveiled plans for a 56,000-square-foot performing arts complex in downtown Naples. 

More:Collier on the brink of learning how much is here in the art

The Marco Island Historical Museum, on the other hand, recently put away its blueprints. It has finished the final pieces — a generator, extra security features, multimedia programs and the colorizing of its history murals  — into a $350,000-plus upgrade. That fuss is for an internationally renowned dignitary arriving in January: The Key Marco Cat.

The United Arts Council of Collier County also finished its work, knocking out walls and adding gallery lighting to move into its first facility downtown, at 953 Fourth Ave. N. in Naples.

For CAPA, the Cultural and Performing Arts Center, it was time to roll up blueprints and start over. Two developers that had included it in ventures for a Bayshore Drive tract dropped their bids for the county-owned property. The group is rethinking its means, but not its end, according to President Bill Drackett. 

It's Marco's Year of the Cat, UAC's new role

The Marco Island Historical Museum is planning a grand public opening for its Key Marco Cat exhibition. The 6-inch statue, a rare antiquity discovered on the island by archeologist Frank Cushing in 1896, is coming back to Marco for its first time since 1999 — before the museum was built.

Also, for the first time since they were discovered, other artifacts from the same expedition are joining it, on loan from the University of Pennsylvania. Talks, films, visual effects and children's activities will make its two-year stay, beginning Jan. 26, the cat's meow.

Precious pet:Key Marco Cat returns, this time to a home built for it

The United Arts Council of Collier County was looking for a home closer to downtown to be "more available to the community," explained Laura Burns, executive director, at the time. "We want to start to act as an incubator and a creative hub." 

The space it moved into in June on Fourth Avenue North is not larger than its last quarters in North Naples. But it's better configured, with a large room for conferences, exhibitions, even entertainment.

The UAC quickly put it to work, keeping its larger allotment of gallery space filled. It sponsored an arts educator workshop, administered a portfolio analysis session for art students and held an open-mic session that packed the house. 

Gulfshore Playhouse gets drawings; Artis—Naples gets cranes

Gulfshore Playhouse founder Kristen Coury has had a building in mind for the Playhouse since its founding in May 2004. A $10 million donation from Patty and Jay Baker put that dream on wheels, and the theater board bought 3 acres of land at Goodlette-Frank Road and First Avenue South last year. 

More:Gulfshore Playhouse hires architect, unveils preliminary theater design

Since then it has engaged architects H3 of  Arquitectonica and has released drawings of the planned exterior. Attendees at its annual fundraiser March 18 will see even more specific drawings, according to Coury. The organization has bulked up with strategically critical personnel, bringing in:

•  In the new post of managing director, Joel Markus, of the historic Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia, who has experience in Broadway-style musicals and one-night concert and comedy events
• As  capital campaign manager, New York fundraising pro Jeanne Sigler, its  current development consultant
• As a board member, longtime arts supporter Sandi Moran, a co-producer of several Broadway musicals and former president of the  United Arts Council.  Moran also is chairman of the board for the Naples Children & Education Foundation, grant-making organization behind the Naples Winter Wine Festival. 

The capital campaign committee, will launch its first official meeting in January, and the playhouse fundraising is "going great," according to Coury. "We're a third of the way there, and we're excited to dig in and keep going."

When Hurricane Irma slammed into Southwest Florida, wavering between Category 4 and 3 on Sept. 10 of 2017, it forced water into the facade of The Baker Museum. Because Artis—Naples was three months into a campaign to keep it apace with arts and community preferences, the board decided to simply fold whatever work was being done into its Future Forward Plan for expanding the campus.

What's coming:Artis—Naples begins work on its $150 million 'future forward' campus

The museum had to wave off the "French Moderns: From Monet to Matisse" exhibition and currently must confine exhibitions to the four adjunct galleries in Hayes Hall, the concert venue. November 2019 can't come soon enough for Frank Verpoorten, director and chief curator. 

It is scheduled to re-open in November, just in time for the anniversary of Artis—Naples, which opened 30 years ago next year as the Philharmonic Center for the Arts.

Currently the campus is undergoing growing pains as it tears down the museum's entrance atrium to create a broader plaza with more outdoor event area. 

The Norris Garden, onto which the museum's 20-foot tall, steel-and-bronze gates designed by Albert Paley opened, has been fenced off while demolition is done. It squeezes event patrons into lobby and gallery bistro tables for its cafe fare. But that's necessary, said Kathleen van Bergen, president and CEO of Artis—Naples.

"We're on a tightly choreographed schedule. Between now and late November is under a year, and as you can imagine, the demolition is something we want to handle safely as well as quickly."

The result will be an open walkway, with water features and seating. The museum will also get a cantilevered east-side extension for social spots, two first-floor conference-exhibition/social spaces and balconies that look out toward the Gulf of Mexico.

The work has also closed off what's known as Artis Alley or Allee, the driveway behind the museum and Hayes Hall. So patrons who are just late enough to miss a spot in the parking lot of its Stabile building have had to drive around the block to reach lots on the other side. 

The good news is that the drive is expected to re-open this week, according to van Bergen. To ease the parking crunch, Artis—Naples also has negotiated a new agreement with Wells-Fargo to use the lots behind those offices at Pelican Bay Boulevard and Ridgewood Drive after 6 p.m. and on weekends. And an agreement with Waterside Shops also will offer patrons shuttle stops on a loop around the entire center, rather than only at the parking garage.

This work is only part of a $150 million capital and endowment plan Artis—Naples is unpacking over the next five years to add another theater, a small black-box space and its own parking. 

Right downtown:Naples artists, art lovers have new destination in council quarters

TheatreZone barely opens;  CAPA awaits county

TheatreZone had a challenge easier to scale, but with more urgency. It had to scrap its 2017 "Home for the Holidays" revue after Irma washed water into its G&L Theatre, wrecking carpeting, seating and wall coverings. The theater's restoration was pronounced complete Jan. 3 — a week before its season opening Jan. 10.

For CAPA, the Cultural and Performing Arts Center project in East Naples, the entire year was one of rebuilding. First, the group came into the year having lost its longtime president, John Charles (Chick) Heithaus, who died unexpectedly in late 2017. Then it learned that two developers who had included a performing arts center in their plans had dropped their bids for the 17-acre Collier County tract up for sale.

Under its new president, Bill Drackett, CAPA streamlined its operations to drop fielding a fulltime office and turned to Opera Naples to partner the fifth year of its performing arts series. 

"We wanted to concentrate on our core mission of finding a home," he said "When it became apparent we had an option with Opera Naples and their pre-existing ticketing systems, and their mailing list and our mailing list, joining forces just made a lot of sense on everybody's part."

More:Princesses in Paradise: Opera Naples, TheatreZone stage 'Aida' from Verdi, Elton John

The center's mission has always been to have arts organizations work collaboratively, and Drackett said a volunteer survey offered  by the Community Redevelopment Agency has bolstered that.

"It came back very strong for a cultural component, and CAPA was mentioned overwhelmingly. It mentioned Sugden Park and the 17 acres the county has there," he added.

He summarized the comments he read from the surveys as: "Don't worry about making money — get the land productive and continue to add to all the development that's going on in the arts district. So it was all good news for us." 

However, he said, the entire county is now awaiting an arts and culture strategic plan, for which Collier County commissioners voted a $50,000 grant in June. 

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