The Tampa Museum of Art’s (TMA) new education center will be named the Vinik Family Education Center in honor of a $5 million gift made by Jeff and Penny Vinik to the museum’s $100 million Centennial Campaign for Renovation and Expansion.
“The Tampa Museum of Art is renowned for the value of its educational programs and its exceptional support for Hillsborough County students and teachers. We are delighted to advance that good work with this gift and to further contribute to the museum’s mission to educate, engage and inspire Tampa Bay residents and others around the world,” said Penny.
“The opening of our new education center is long-awaited for museum members, volunteers and other visitors. We are so thrilled to finally have a facility with a capacity to match the demand for our education programs, and we are grateful to the Viniks for their generous gift to help make this facility and the future growth possible,” said Michael Tomor, Ph.D., Penny and Jeff Vinik executive director of TMA.
The education center will serve as the temporary entrance to the museum while additional renovations are completed on the west side of the building. The first classes in the space will be the museum’s Summer Art Camps.
Including the Vinik family’s total $10 million gift, having also gifted $5 million in October 2019, the Centennial Campaign has raised $71 million toward TMA’s $100 million goal.
With the education center renovations complete, the education space now includes four classrooms, a lobby, orientation spaces and a secure entrance. With these improvements in place, TMA anticipates quadrupling the number of students it serves per year.
New galleries are scheduled to open in the fall of 2022, and the groundbreaking for the expansion portion of the Centennial Renovation and Expansion project is expected to take place early next year.
The design of the entire renovation and expansion project is led by New York-based WEISS/MANFREDI Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism.
“We’re thrilled that the Vinik Family Education Center is the fitting and very visible first phase of the larger transformation and expansion of the Museum,” said Principal Architects Marion Weiss and Michael Manfredi.
The future expansion project will add a 4,000-square-foot auditorium. Culinary Arts classes on the third-floor rooftop area of the expansion will also add to its future education program offerings.
To learn more about the Tampa Museum of Art Centennial Renovation and Expansion, visit http://centennial.tampamuseum.org.
