Marie Selby Botanical Gardens has announced that the official groundbreaking ceremony for Phase Two of its three-phase master plan for its downtown Sarasota campus will take place on Tuesday, Dec. 2, at 10 a.m.

To date, Phase Two has reached $53.2 million, or 88 percent, of its necessary funding, with a grand total of $118 million raised for the entire project. Phase Two will further expand the gardens' research facilities and educational offerings, including a new conservatory complex with more than 20,000 plants from the gardens' living research collections; a learning pavilion with enhanced facilities for education programs; and new landscape features. It will be powered by 100 percent renewable energy and water harvesting. The design, construction, conservatory advisory and engineering team includes international landscape architecture studio OLIN, Sweet Sparkman Architecture & Interiors, Kimley-Horn and Associates, MEP by Engineering Matrix, TY Lin Silman,  Ron Determann, Jeffrey Woolsey, L Design and Willis Smith Construction.

"Our living research collection is a cornerstone of conservation, education, and scientific discovery," says Selby Gardens president and CEO Jennifer Rominiecki. "Safeguarding it from the growing impacts of hurricanes is both urgent and essential to ensure this irreplaceable collection can continue to
flourish and inform critical research.”

In 2024, Selby debuted Phase One of its Master Plan, adding 188,033 square feet of new amenities to the downtown campus, including the Morganroth Family Living Energy Access Facility (LEAF), which houses parking, The Green Orchid restaurant, a new gift shop, vertical gardens, and a nearly 50,000 square-foot solar array; the hurricane-resistant Steinwachs Family Plant Research Center, which houses Selby's collections of preserved plant specimens, a research library with volumes dating to the 1700s,  a spirit laboratory with more than 40,000 specimens preserved in fluid, conference rooms, administrative offices, a rooftop garden and a solar array; the open-air Jean Goldstein Welcome Center, consisting of a ticketing pavilion, welcome gallery and welcome theater; a stormwater management system; a public multi-use recreational trail; and a number of new garden and water features with more open space.