On Nov. 17 of last year, four qualified proposals were presented to the jury. Seibert Architects, RMJ M Hillier with Diane Lewis Architect, and Beckelman+Capalino presented the proposal that the jury finally chose, the Riverview Music Quadrangle. This plan would rehabilitate the original buildings as a regional and international music center with practice rooms, classrooms, performance spaces and residential facilities. It would establish Sarasota as a center for music studies and provide improved facilities for the Perlman Music Program and, it is hoped, such programs as the National Youth Orchestra and the Juilliard Opera Studio. The campus could also be used by teaching festivals such as the Sarasota Music Festival.

The school board has agreed to review the Music Quadrangle at its meeting this month, scheduled for that resonant date, March 15. At the school board’s Dec. 11 workshop, members again stressed that this ambitious and visionary plan must somehow be provided to the school district and the community at absolutely no cost and with virtually no impact on the neighborhood. In case anyone missed the point, board member Frank Kovach made more than one suggestion that the group “bring a check” to the March meeting.

Make no mistake, this is worthwhile endeavor. It could enhance Sarasota’s reputation as a center for the arts while saving landmark buildings that are key to our threatened architectural heritage. It could also show how visionary architecture can stimulate creativity in other fields. The Rudolph buildings are still ahead of their time in environmental impact and sustainability. As such, they could be an exciting and appropriate cradle for a long-awaited surge in new music from Sarasota.

Mark Smith, AIA, one of the leaders of the efforts to save Riverview, cautions that the dance will not be over until it’s proved beyond doubt that the preservation alliance cannot satisfy all the requirements established by the school board. If that should happen, says Smith, he will take reluctant comfort in the knowledge that the group’s efforts were undertaken with imagination and in good faith. As for me, I sincerely hope that my fear that the final round in this long contest might be like the welcome the Roman Senators gave poor old Julius on March 15, 44 B.C., will prove to be unfair and unfounded.

Architecture and music critic Richard Storm has won a number of awards for this column, including from the Florida Magazine Association and South Florida’s Society of Professional Journalists.