Phase Two of Selby Gardens' Master Plan for its downtown Sarasota property was unanimously approved by the eligible members of the City of Sarasota's Planning Board last week. 

Selby Gardens president and CEO Jennifer Rominiecki says plans are to break ground on Phase Two of the plan by the end of 2025, which is slated to expand the gardens' campus, research facilities and educational offerings. Specifically, Phase Two will focus on building a new conservatory complex, learning pavilion and adding strategic landscape features, including the removal of the old glass houses. 

In an email, Romniecki wrote the conservatory complex will be the "crown jewel" of the downtown Sarasota campus, "a stunning crystal palace filled with more than 200,000 plants from our living research collections (including the best  scientifically documented collections of orchids and bromeliads in the world)." The complex will be built to withstand major hurricanes and powered by 100 percent renewable energy. 

The indoor/outdoor learning pavilion will act as a home base for the gardens' education programs, which serve more than 100,000 children and adults each year. The gardens will continue to work with internationally recognized landscape architecture and urban design studio Olin on the project; earlier this year, the firm won a Philip Hanson Hiss award from Architecture Sarasota for Phase One of the project. 

To date, Selby Gardens has raised $50.4 million of its $60.9 million capital goal for Phase Two, with its completion expected by the end of 2027.

For more information about Selby Gardens' Master Plan, click here. To read an interview with Olin Design Studio designers Richard Roark and Marni Burns about their work on the project, click here.