The City of Winter Park is about to get its own performing arts center, right in the middle of the city’s downtown.
The old three-story, 35,000-square-foot Winter Park library, which has been empty since a new one opened nearby in 2021, will become home to Blue Bamboo Center for the Arts later this year.
If the name Blue Bamboo sounds familiar, that’s because there was a smaller but popular live-jazz-focused venue of the same name thriving on the outskirts of Winter Park for about a decade. Redevelopment took over the previous location on Kentucky Avenue near I-4 in January 2024.
Now, Blue Bamboo’s owner Chris Cortez is aiming higher. He went up against larger, well-funded arts groups, raised money in a grassroots campaign, and won the right to reshape the old library into a new Blue Bamboo.
“Everybody loves a David and Goliath story,” Cortez chuckled.
Cortez said the process to get into the building, located on the corner of New England Avenue and Aloma Avenue, was so daunting that he almost didn’t even try. Long-circulating rumors of the building needing millions of dollars’ worth of renovations were just plain scary.
“The first thing I was told was that the roof leaked, there was mold, and the elevator needed to be completely replaced – and not only replaced, but the elevator shaft wasn’t big enough, so it had to be [entirely remade],” Cortez said. “We were like, okay, this is why it costs millions of dollars to fix this building.”
But upon his own inspection, Cortez learned the rumors just weren’t true. “The roof didn’t leak,” Cortez said. “There wasn’t any mold.” And the elevator only needed minor adjustments to be brought into compliance with fire safety regulations and Americans with Disabilities Act requirements.
What’s more, Cortez added, inspections proved that the Blue Bamboo Center for the Arts could get up and running for a price tag of less than half a million dollars.
The next step was convincing Winter Park city commissioners to let him move forward, which was done, in part, by Cortez presenting both an artistic argument for the facility and a financial one.
Cortez pointed out that local businesses would benefit from city residents having their own performing arts center in the mold of Orlando’s Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts.
“If they can’t find it in Winter Park, they will go to the performing arts center in Orlando…and they’ll park in Orlando, and eat in Orlando, and shop in Orlando,” Cortez said.
“So, I took the position that if you’re a public official in Winter Park and you think performing arts are a luxury, you’re leaving money on the table. All of your local businesses need that money.”
Cortez himself comes with extensive experience in balancing the interests of artistic entertainment and finances, but really, he says, it’s the art that drives him. A well-known jazz musician himself, he originally created Blue Bamboo to “serve our community through the arts,” according to the organization’s mission statement. Cortez also takes pride in helping other artists get their start.
“You need to play the 1,000-seat venue before you can play the 10,000-seat venue before you can play the 100,000-seat venue,” Cortez laughed. “And there has been so many success stories so far!”
Cortez said his goal is to make the arts more accessible in the new three-story center, with the performance venue itself on the first floor and arts education on the second floor. He has two partner organizations for that so far – Central Florida Vocal Arts and the Winter Park Chamber Music Academy.
As for the third floor?
“My idea for the third floor is really just to share it,” Cortez explained.
“I want to put a gallery up there,” he said, a nod to his wife and business partner Melody Cortez, who’s a painter and artist in her own right, “and I’d like to have other nonprofit arts organizations and even the general public for arts-related use could just reserve the place, and maybe pay a nominal fee…not like you have to sign a big lease to get up there.”
“That ‘shared’ thing is a huge part of it,” Cortez noted. “It gives back to the community right away. As soon as we open it up, there’s something that every arts organization can access.”
