"You'll see some pretty dramatic changes to the campus in the coming months and years," Vero Beach Museum of Art Executive Director Brady Roberts told Vero News in March. The same report spelled out how far those changes go. Programming continues in the existing building through early 2027. When the new building is finished in 2028, the existing 40-year-old facility will be demolished and its footprint turned into gardens.

That puts a deadline on the museum's 40th year. County Commissioners and City Council members marked the anniversary with proclamations in January. Inside 3001 Riverside Park Drive, the anniversary season is also the farewell season. Every exhibition, lecture and gala left on the building's calendar has to fit between now and the first week of February.

A Building That Becomes a Garden

The new museum is not replacing the old one on the same spot. It is going up to the west and south of the current building, on ground raised 9 feet to clear the flood zone, and it will connect to the two-story hurricane-resistant art storage bunker built on the campus in 2012. Once the old galleries come down, their site becomes raised, planted ground leading to museum entrances on three sides. The main entrance will face the Under the Oaks section of Riverside Park. Roberts described the plan as "creating an acre and a half of green space," with the museum becoming "the natural thoroughfare in the park."

In other words, the rooms where you saw your last few exhibitions will become part of the park itself. The design is by Allied Works with Unknown Studio. The museum's fact sheet lists $90.5 million in hard costs. Roberts told Vero News in August that the museum ended the season with $116 million raised toward a $126 million goal, and that the two-year project, which broke ground last November, was on schedule for completion by late 2028.

The Wall Already Standing Next Door

Visitors to this final season can already see a piece of the new building from the old one. In August, the museum unveiled a 30-foot-tall, L-shaped mock-up wall on the construction site, cast in architectural concrete made specifically for this project. The concrete is mixed at the Maschmeyer Concrete plant in Indian River County from Florida materials, including natural sand. Reinforced Structures Inc. adds Florida beach shells and oyster shells on site, pours the mix, and sandblasts the surface by hand. Getting the mix right took about a year, and almost seven months of test pours followed before it was final.

"We started with the idea of coral stone; it's not uniform and looks organic," Roberts said.

The campus has been working alongside the construction for months. On July 14, TCPalm photographed summer art-camp children at the museum on the same day Turner Construction crews were working on the expansion. Some of the campus has already closed. The museum's visitor page says the Sculpture Parks are closed indefinitely while the campus is improved. Those are the Alice & Jim Beckwith Sculpture Park, opened in 2007, and the Alice & Jim Beckwith North Plaza Sculpture Park, opened in 2010. The museum has not published what will happen to the sculptures now in them. It has said that Yinka Shonibare's Wind Sculpture in Bronze VI will have a prominent place in the new sculpture garden when the expanded museum opens in 2028.

Open More Days, With Less Time Left

As its time in the old building runs short, the museum has added hours. Since September 14, the galleries and Museum Store have been open Mondays again. Hours are 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 1 to 4 p.m. on Sunday, with a free docent-led tour daily at 2 p.m. included with paid admission.

Three exhibitions are on view now, and each one ends on a different date.

• James Prosek: At Work, Holmes Gallery, through October 25. More than 70 paintings, watercolors and sculptures covering 30 years of the naturalist's botanical portraits, fish and wildlife studies. The show is organized by the Morris Museum of Morristown, New Jersey, with new interpretive texts written by VBMA.
• Jill Nathanson: Chromatic Phrases, in the Schumann and Titelman galleries through October 25, then in the Schumann Gallery alone through February 7. Chief Curator Caitlin Swindell organized this original exhibition of Nathanson's recent abstract paintings, which draw on the Color Field painting of the 1960s and 1970s. Nathanson returns on October 17 to teach an intermediate-level painting workshop from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., followed by a 3 p.m. walkthrough of the show.
• The Museum in the Garden: Envisioning the New VBMA, Stark Gallery, through January 3. It follows the Allied Works and Unknown Studio designs from conceptual sketches in 2022 to the finished renderings of the project now under construction.

The third show displays the plans for the new building inside a gallery the project will tear down, a few hundred feet from where that new building is rising.

The Final Touring Exhibition

The museum calls Hokusai, Hiroshige, Hasui its final touring exhibition in the current building. The show comes from MFA Boston and opens Saturday, November 21, filling both the Holmes and Titelman galleries through February 7. Vero Beach is the first U.S. venue for the exhibition. It brings together more than 100 color woodblock prints by Katsushika Hokusai and Utagawa Hiroshige, the 19th-century masters of the "Floating World," along with modern prints by Kawase Hasui of the shin hanga movement, who was named a "living national treasure" in 1956. The exhibition presents Hokusai as the innovator, Hiroshige as the developer, and Hasui as the artist who reinvented the form in modern terms.

The 45th season of the International Lecture Series is built around the exhibition. The speakers are Noriko Murai, Professor of Art History at Sophia University in Tokyo; Andreas Marks, director of the Clark Center for Japanese Art at the Minneapolis Institute of Art; and Pico Iyer, the travel writer, essayist and novelist.

The Calendar, Start to Finish

Every remaining program in the current building, in order. Dates come from the museum's season announcements.

1. October 17: Jill Nathanson workshop and 3 p.m. walkthrough.
2. October 25: last day for James Prosek: At Work.
3. November 14: Ballet Vero Beach.
4. November 21: Hokusai, Hiroshige, Hasui opens.
5. November 30: first International Lecture Series date.
6. December 12: Holidays at the Museum, free, with family tours, studio art-making and performances by local youth and community groups.
7. January 3: last day for The Museum in the Garden.
8. January 11: second lecture.
9. January 22 and 23: Asbury Short Film Concert.
10. January 29: Gala 2027, Cherry Blossoms at Night. The museum says gala guests "will be among some of the final visitors to spend time in the current galleries before the museum goes dark."
11. February 1: final lecture.
12. February 6: Ballet Vero Beach returns.
13. February 7: Hokusai, Hiroshige, Hasui and Chromatic Phrases both close.

February 7 is a Sunday, when the galleries open from 1 to 4 p.m. The museum has not named it the building's last public day, but no exhibition in the old galleries is scheduled past it. Plan around the holiday closures as well: Thanksgiving Thursday and Friday, November 26 and 27; December 24 and 25; and December 31 and January 1. The museum also closes at 4 p.m. on Friday, November 6, and Friday, November 20, for member events.

Under the Oaks, After the Galleries Close for the Day

The museum's neighbors in Riverside Park fill in the rest of a fall evening. Riverside Theatre opens its six-show 2026–27 season with the Southeast premiere of My Vaudeville Man! on the Waxlax Stage, running October 15 through November 22 for 44 performances. Richard Stafford directs, with book by Jeff Hochhauser, music by Bob Johnston, and lyrics by the two together. The Loop Kitchen & Bar serves food, craft drinks and live music outdoors beneath the oaks from 5 to 8:30 p.m., Thursday through Saturday, and offers private cabanas by reservation. Early October performers include Jerzi Band on October 8, East Harbor Trio on October 9 and Tanner Goulet Electric Quintet on October 10. The Lionheart Band plays October 15 and Uproot Hootenanny plays October 23.

For families, Riverside Children's Theatre puts on free Playtime in the Park sessions on the outdoor Loop Stage: Happy Halloween! on October 10 and Giving Thanks on November 14. November 14 is also a Ballet Vero Beach date at the museum, so the park has programs running at both ends of the day. CATS: Young Actor's Edition closes the children's calendar for the year with five performances on the Waxlax Stage, December 17 through 19.

What Happens After February

The museum has not published any programming for the 2027 to 2028 closure. No off-site classes, temporary venue or pop-up exhibitions have been announced. The museum's own volunteer group gives one sign of what the year looks like. The Circle's calendar moves its spring gatherings out of the museum: a membership meeting at Vero Beach Yacht Club on February 10, one at the McKee Botanical Gardens Education Building on March 11, and a closing reception at Bent Pines Golf Club on April 8.

When the museum reopens, the new building will have an education wing with painting, drawing and ceramics studios. The ceramics center, funded in part by a $2 million gift from the Indian River Community Foundation, will have a 1,000-square-foot studio, a new kiln room and a new glazing room. The current ceramics classes, 29 of them last year, typically sell out within hours of registration opening. Until then, the old galleries have about four months of programs left, and Hokusai, Hiroshige, Hasui and Chromatic Phrases both run through Sunday, February 7.

Riverside Park's cultural campus is part of what makes Vero Beach's barrier island distinct, and we expect to keep following it as the new museum rises. If you'd like to talk about the island's next chapter, or your place in it, O'Dare Boga Dobson Group is glad to have that conversation. Work With Us.