ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A $12 million renovation campaign is underway at the Palladium at St. Petersburg College.
The historic performing arts venue in downtown St. Petersburg originally started as a church and could use some upgrades to make it more accommodating to today's visitor. Today, the Palladium is also home to the St. Pete Opera.
"The Palladium is a unique venue in Tampa Bay. After we built all the performing arts centers, and they're wonderful, the community realized they couldn't afford to do shows at the Straz, at the Mahaffey," said Paul Wilborn, executive director of the Palladium at SPC. "A group of philanthropists in St. Petersburg bought this in 1995, they opened it in '98, it was a Christian Science church. They had theater seats, which is one reason they bought it. And our mission is to be the affordable, professional venue for community arts organizations."
The seats inside are original and need to be replaced.
"We're trying to raise $10 million—we're pretty close—to completely redo the seats, drop in a new sort of acoustic ceiling, do some other things that will make the building much more functional and comfortable and sound better. So the artists will have a better place to perform, and our audiences will be more comfortable," said Wilborn.
The Palladium at SPC just launched a new fundraising "Name a Seat" campaign.
You can donate to get your name in a plaque on the back of the seat. Click here if you'd like more information.
