Months after Time magazine named Sarasota’s Selby Botanical Gardens one of the world’s greatest places, the Wall Street Journal is praising the design of the first phase of the gardens’ master plan.
Selby is included in the newspaper’s review of the “Best Architecture of 2024: Accentuate the Personal.”
Critic Michael Lewis Lewis wrote that during a visit 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.”
He also wrote that “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.”
In January, Selby held a grand opening of three buildings that make up the first phase of a three-part master plan makeover of the 15-acre downtown Sarasota campus. The project includes the Morganroth Family Living Energy Access Facility, or LEAF, which encompasses a four-story parking garage topped with more than 2,000 solar panels, the new Green Orchid restaurant and a rooftop garden, as well as a new gift shop. Selby also opened the new open-air Jean Goldstein Welcome Center, which features ticket windows and a welcome gallery, and the Steinwachs Family Plant Research Center, which houses research facilities and administrative offices.
With the opening of the 57,000-square-foot solar array, Selby is the first net-positive botanical garden in the world, producing more energy than it uses.
In November, Selby reported that it had already raised about 66% of its goal for phase two of the master plan, which is expected to begin in late 2025. Phase Two will create a new hurricane-resilient glass house conservatory complex, an indoor/outdoor learning pavilion and expanded garden features. It has raised more than $40.3 million of the $60.9 million goal.
A new lily pond borders the Selby Gardens Jean Weinstein Welcome Center and a building that houses a parking garage, restaurant and gift shop.
In a review earlier this year, Lewis wrote that Selby went about creating its new garden “in the most sophisticated and technologically innovative way imaginable. Happily, it has been done in a way that does full justice to the primal nature of a garden.”
In a statement, Selby President and CEO Jennifer O. Rominiecki said the newspaper’s comments are a “testament to the vision, innovation and dedication of our team, as well as the incredible support from our community.”
In July, Selby was one of just eight sites in the United States included in Time magazine’s annual 100 of the World’s Greatest Places list. And in March, Selby placed third in USA Today’s 10Best Readers Choice awards for best botanical garden in the country.
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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Wall Street Journal cites Sarasota landmark for best architecture