Philanthropists Tom and Sherry Koski have committed a gift of $1 million to support the Master Plan for Marie Selby Botanical Gardens’ downtown Sarasota campus, which is scheduled to open in August 2023. With their gift, the Koskis also join an initiator group of donors who have seeded a matching challenge for the funds needed to complete Phase One of the project. Through the Phase One Capping Challenge, gifts to the campaign from the community are currently being matched dollar-for-dollar.

To date, Selby Gardens has raised over $45 million for construction of Phase One of the Master Plan, which will include a new welcome center; a cutting-edge plant research center with a state-of-the-art herbarium, laboratory, and research library; and the Living Energy Access Facility, or LEAF, which will house parking, a gift and plant shop, and a garden-level restaurant while being capped with a 50,000-square-foot solar array that will provide one megawatt of power.