Should city construct indoor performing arts center downtown?

BOCA RATON — The city is poised to spend millions of dollars to build a multipurpose government center downtown, but should that include an indoor performing arts center?

That’s a question city leaders are debating as they design a dream municipal campus.

Boca is in the planning stages of developing the government center on 22 acres of downtown land that currently house City Hall, the downtown library and the police department headquarters, among other public amenities.

“There’s a need for (a performing arts center),” Boca Councilman Jeremy Rodgers said. “Whether we want to fill that need or not is the question.”

A survey of 700 Boca Raton and suburban Boca residents revealed 53 percent want an indoor performing arts center that seats between 1,500 and 2,500, said Young Song, who heads Song & Associates, the firm hired by the city to plan the government center.

“This is Boca Raton. You are proud to be a cultural center,” Song said. “I think it would be a wonderful element to have.”

Deputy Mayor Scott Singer disagrees. The city shouldn’t compete with area performing arts hubs like the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach or Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale, he said.

And with limited space and plenty of demand for amenities at the downtown government campus, the city should focus on a community center, City Hall and a parking garage, Singer said.

Other council members agreed the downtown complex may not be the right place for a performing arts center, but said they think one is needed.

“We do have culture and we do have arts,” Councilwoman Andrea O’Rourke said. “They have to go to high schools to perform.”

Local acts like the Boca Ballet Theater and The Symphonia orchestra practice and perform at local high schools.

The performing arts center could, O’Rourke suggested, go on the top floor of the planned City Hall building.