Dive into the SEA – SEA open to wave of excitement

By Jay Heater, Managing Editor – October 9, 2025

There they were on Oct. 6, Lake­wood Ranch’s Leslie Hig­gins and Sara­sota’s Nancy Scan­lon, with their bod­ies crunched down on the floor as they tried to get a bet­ter angle to take pho­tos at the one of the huge fish tanks in the Mote Sci­ence Edu­ca­tion Aquar­ium. The two seni­ors had a bit of trouble get­ting back up, but they didn’t care. They were laugh­ing, hav­ing the time of their lives.

“Awe­some,” Hig­gins said of the new aquar­ium. “Amaz­ing,” Scan­lon added faster than an otter could break the sur­face of the water. They weren’t alone in their jubil­a­tion. A stream of pat­rons gave their eval­u­ation of the facil­ity with oneword super­lat­ives. “It’s the dynam­ics,” Scan­lon said. “The design. The col­ors.”

“I appre­ci­ate the edu­ca­tion,” Hig­gins said. “I can’t wait to bring my grand­chil­dren.”

Those who were vis­it­ing Oct. 6-7 were being treated to a Mote mem­bers’ sneak pre­view. The aquar­ium opened to the gen­eral pub­lic Oct. 8.

That ended a pro­cess since Novem­ber 2020 in which archi­tect TVS Design and build­ers Wil­lis Smith Con­struc­tion and Whit­ingTurner pieced together the dream of CEO and Pres­id­ent Michael Crosby and his Mote Mar­ine fam­ily. Crosby called it a long Mote SEA voy­age.

The $132 mil­lion aquar­ium can now begin to host the pro­jec­ted 700,000 vis­it­ors annu­ally along with more than 70,000 stu­dents a year from the region.

What: Mote Sci­ence Edu­ca­tion Aquar­ium

Where: 225 Uni­versity Town Cen­ter Drive, Sara­sota

Hours: 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily

Tick­ets: Tick­ets prices vary by day of week, but here are prices for Sat­urday, Oct. 11 — Adult (13-plus), $37; Youth 3-12, $29; 2 and younger, free (You must buy tick­ets online at Mote.org/Loc­a­tion/ Mote-Sci­ence-Edu­ca­tion­ Aquar­ium/.) Dis­counts also are avail­able for buy­ing tick­ets more than 30 days in advance.

“When we star­ted, even the land didn’t exist,” said Kevin Cooper, Mote’s vice pres­id­ent for com­mu­nic­a­tions and stra­tegic ini­ti­at­ives. “It was a lake (at Nathan Bend­er­son Park), so we had to build the ground upon which the facil­ity was built. It took us a couple of years just to do site pre­par­a­tion.”

Although Cooper said a few anim­als are still wait­ing to be added because of a chal­len­ging per­mit­ting pro­cess, the sched­uled lineup of attrac­tions is pretty much com­plete. He said over time, Mote will con­tinue to add other spe­cies as war­ran­ted.

Manatee County Com­mis­sioner Mike Rahn was among the dig­nit­ar­ies who atten­ded the rib­bon cut­ting cere­mony Oct. 3.

“It’s a top-notch mar­ine research facil­ity,” Rahn said. “As far as tour­ism, it’s going to take the region to another level. You are going to have the beaches, the sun­shine and the aquar­ium.”

Wil­lis Smith Pres­id­ent and CEO John LaCiv­ita took a photo with his team at the entrance to the aquar­ium after the rib­bon cut­ting.

“We couldn’t be more proud,” LaCiv­ita said. “It’s a land­mark, and Wil­lis Smith is known for land­marks.”

Wil­lis Smith Vice Pres­id­ent Dave Otter­ness added, “We’ve never done a project like this, but we helped to bring the Gulf of Mex­ico out to Lake­wood Ranch and UTC.”

U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan said it took Crosby to steer the ship to the fin­ish.

“You can have someone who has a vis­ion, but can he execute?” Buchanan said. “(Michael Crosby) is an incred­ible sales­man. This was a com­bin­a­tion of every­one work­ing together.”

State Col­lege of Flor­ida Pres­id­ent Tommy Gregory said the edu­ca­tional com­pon­ent will be a game-changer, not only for grade school stu­dents, but for col­lege stu­dents as well, and even his fac­ulty mem­bers.

“We are going to be look­ing into part­ner­ships with our fac­ulty and Mote,” he said. “It will provide a great hands-on exper­i­ence.”

Flor­ida Rep. James Buchanan called it a “great day for STEM, for my kids, and for future gen­er­a­tions. Kids will be inspired to be our next sci­ent­ists.”