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Sarasota News Leader October 26, 2012 Meanwhile, supporters of the highbrow arts are scrambling to find a younger audience. As the older patrons fade away, there is concern the traditional performing arts may fade away, too. The much-ballyhooed Arts District, which was to replace the acres of asphalt serving as the Van Wezel's parking lot, vanished along with the high-end project planned at the old (and demolished) Sarasota Quay. Yet, Bradenton's "Village of the Arts" – a live- work enclave – continues to grow and evolve just south of downtown. It is a place to talk with living artists and craftsmen who make and sell their wares downstairs while they live upstairs. Development and redevelopment are slow- ly returning to both cities. Tom Mannaussa's 18-story "Jewel" marks the return of down- town condo construction in Sarasota. The $15 million rehabilitation of Bradenton's 1926 "Pink Palace" into a modern Hampton Inn Suites hotel is a similar revival of downtown construction. The interior of the Pink Palace was gutted long ago, except for the first floor and a grand staircase, which remain intact under the new plans. Although there will be no public bar, one of the suites will have a sign: Al Capone slept here. It is the only surviving 1920s-era hotel south of Tampa Bay. Sarasota allowed the demolition of the John Ringling Towers, even though the developer of the Ritz Carlton wanted to save it, as he had saved and restored two other his- toric hotels in the Midwest. Page 19 ANOTHER KIND OF BRADENTON REVIVAL At the height of the Great Depression in 1937, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt came to Braden- ton to open a community center built with federal funds on land donated by the city. Situated between a busy railroad and a busy highway, the center served Bradenton's Afri- can-American community until the tired build- ing was torn down in 2010. On Monday, Oct. 22, a groundbreaking was held for a new kind of community center, one even more important, you might say, than a structure with classes and recreation. This one will feed the community. The golden shovels broke ground for a new commercial center, with a Save-A-Lot grocery store as the centerpiece. The complex will be named the Minnie L. Rogers Plaza and Retail Center to honor the woman who created the original community center so long ago. In the audience were at least 30 of Rogers' descendants, who had come from all over the nation for the ceremony and celebration. And it was indeed a celebration; there is no gro- cery story within five miles of the site. "This project is one my mother would be in the middle of," said Mary Brewer, who flew in from San Francisco. The two men who were the strategic and tacti- cal operators who made it happen were there, too. Bradenton Mayor Wayne Poston spoke, saying the center "is a transformation of this community."