Taking Center Stage
The performing arts scene in Bonita Springs gets a burst of new life
Welcome to the new Centers for the Arts Bonita Springs. Here’s the story on how the community came together to create the best possible
venue for theater, dance, concerts, film and more.
With an added “s” and a big dose of serendipity, the now plural Centers for the Arts Bonita Springs (CFABS) has doubled its presence in the community, expanded its offerings and brought the performing arts to, well, center stage. At last, Bonita has a dedicated performance space for theater, film and dance.
“That’s been something a lot of us have thought was missing here,” says Bonita Springs Mayor Ben L. Nelson Jr. “There are a variety of things you need to have for a community, for quality of life. It’s not all roads and sewer pipes. This was such a great move on the part of the art league. We’re really excited about having a [performance] place in Bonita Springs to call our own.”
The performance space—now known as CFABS Performing Arts Center—came via the purchase of the Living Waters Church at the corner of Vermont Street and Bonita Beach Road. The deal began in summer 2013 and was finalized in early 2014. Since then, the Performing Arts Center’s dual auditoriums have hosted two shows by CFABS’ fledgling adult community theater, several by its children’s theater group, an ongoing series of films, a handful of concerts and “Improvaganzapaloozacomconjam 2014.”
Quite an ambitious schedule considering those involved headed into seasonal planning expecting to lose the little performing space they had borrowed at The Promenade shopping center. Here’s where that dose of serendipity comes in.
Sufficient space seems to have been a constant problem for CFABS—dating back to 1959, when a group of about 15 artists banded together and formed the Art League of Bonita Springs. The group was seeking mutual support, instruction and exhibition space, and for a number of years they found a home at the community center on Old 41 Road. But just as all of Southwest Florida grew during the 1980s and ’90s, the art league outgrew its rented space—and began yearning for a home of its own.
A fundraising campaign proved the community’s desire for increased artistic offerings and, by April 2000, the league was able to open the first two buildings on an 18-acre campus at the corner of Imperial Harbor Boulevard and Old 41. A third building opened in November 2002, program offerings doubled and the Center for the Arts hosted a full season of exhibitions. Longrange plans at that point included buying additional adjacent land and building a performing arts center.
“This goes back to 2006-2007,” says Susan Bridges, CFABS president. “We’d already grown the performing arts presence
on campus, small as it was. The board said, ‘ We’re going to have to look at buying that land and fundraising for that. We started talking with an architect—and then the economy crashed. The idea went on the back burner. About a year and a half ago, the board said it might be time to resurrect that idea. We were maxed out of space and were within six to eight months of losing the space at The Promenade.”
Just as the CFABS board considered launching a fundraising campaign, however, the Living Waters campus came on the market— with much to recommend it. Because of the nature of the church’s services and the size of its membership, it had a main building with a 400-seat auditorium, already fitted with a sound system and stage lighting. Classrooms and a kitchen ringed the auditorium. An adjacent all-purpose building provided additional space.
“We could purchase and renovate those two buildings for a little more than half what it would cost to buy land and build,” Bridges reports. “Plus there was the idea of the wait [for construction] for our people. They wanted it now.”
A contract was signed on June 6, 2013, and CFABS targeted a $3.3 million fundraising goal, to cover the purchase and renovations. By the following June, the group had reached 85 percent of that goal.
And then the move Living Waters had planned fell through. The church wouldn’t be able to vacate the property by January of 2014, as expected. Services would need to continue through the summer of 2014, the church’s day care program through the start of the summer.
“The concept, for us, became, ‘Can we work together as two community organizations?’” Bridges explains. “It was like taking on a gigantic number of roommates.”
Fortunately, the “roommates” proved compatible, and both organizations were able to operate out of the joint facilities— with a lot of good-natured juggling. Once the sale was complete, CFABS renamed the auditorium in the main building the Larry
“This was such a great move on the part of the art league. We’re really excited about having a [performance] place in Bonita Springs to call our own.” —Ben L. Nelson Jr., Mayor of Bonita Springs
& Beverly Hinman Auditorium. The smaller, all-purpose facility became the Karin & Robert Moe Auditorium.
Since the church still needed to hold services in the Hinman (preventing the start of renovations), CFABS moved its film and theater programs into the Moe. Craig Price, CFABS performing arts director, immediately set to making the most of the new space.
Price had already grown the theater program, starting improvisational comedy classes that evolved into once a month improv showcases at The Promenade. “We had a very successful run with the improv, so I said, ‘We’re ready for our first community theater production,’” he recalls.
In February 2012, CFABS rented Estero High School and presented The Perfect Game, an original musical about the invention of basketball. It went over well enough that Price began planning two more productions for 2014—even before the Living Waters deal was finalized.