Gulfcoast Wonder & Imagination Zone, Science museum in Sarasota, Florida, US
The Gulfcoast Wonder & Imagination Zone was a science museum in Sarasota, Florida, housed in the former Selby Public Library building near Sarasota Bay. The structure was designed by Walter Netsch of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill using his "Field Theory" aesthetic, and it contained the Blivas Science & Technology Center. The building was demolished in May 2019.
The Gulf Coast World of Science began in December 1990 in a 1,000-square-foot room of the Florida West Coast Symphony building. In January 1998 the nonprofit won a 20-year lease from the Sarasota City Commission and moved into the former Selby Public Library, which had been vacated when the library moved downtown that year. Remodeled and renamed, GWIZ opened on August 26, 2000. It closed on September 4, 2012, the city terminated the lease on September 21, 2013, and the building was demolished in May 2019 for The Bay project.
The museum's name compressed its mission into an acronym: Gulf Coast World of Science became G.WIZ after the 2000 move. Its home was the former Selby Public Library, a building by Walter Netsch of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, so visitors passed through a library interior turned into exhibit halls.
The museum stood on the Sarasota Bayfront, on the site of the former Selby Public Library, which had moved downtown in 1998. GWIZ closed to the public on September 4, 2012, for planned renovations, and the city terminated the lease on September 21, 2013. The vacant building was demolished in May 2019 for a recreational pier in The Bay redevelopment.
Before housing the science museum, the building served as Selby Public Library, which moved there from the Chidsey Library in 1976 and left for downtown Sarasota in 1998. GWIZ then remodeled the structure and opened on August 26, 2000.
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