Profile: Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center

The Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center is located downtown on a nine-acre site along the east bank of the Hillsborough River in Tampa, FL. As the largest performing arts complex south of the Kennedy Center, the 290,000 square-foot facility opened in 1987 and provides an environment for a wide variety of world-class events. It features one of the nation's leading Broadway series and is regarded nationally for producing grand opera, as well as presenting a wide variety of concerts, performances and events. More than 600,000 patrons have attended more than 600 performances, classes and other events at The Center in 2006.

The performing arts complex consists of five distinct theaters, a rehearsal hall, retail shops, on-site restaurants and banquet facilities.

With the recent addition of the new Patel Conservatory, The Center has added 45,000-square-feet for its extensive education programs. The Conservatory features 20 studios, including two dance studios with sprung floors, a sound/lighting laboratory, technical theater workshop, rehearsal hall, costume shop, isolation/sound booth, state-of-the-art black box theater and media arts/TV studio.The building is owned by the City of Tampa, and is run by Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, Inc., a non-profit corporation. The annual budget is $30 million.