FORT PIERCE \u2013 The Fort Pierce Redevelopment Agency Board voted unanimously May 12 to award more than half of its 2026 Fiscal Year Mural Budget to four Florida artists who will soon begin work on murals for DreamChaser Preschool, Elks Lodge #1520, Mervis Cafe & Grill and St. Andrew\u2019s Episcopal Academy.<\/p>\n
Two of the mural artworks, St. Andrew\u2019s at 210 S. Indian River Drive and the Elks Lodge at 605 S. US Hwy 1 \u2013 valued at $20,000 and $15,000, respectively \u2013 were awarded to Port St. Lucie-based artists. The city\u2019s Community Redevelopment Agency Advisory Committee was tasked with evaluating the dozens of artist submissions and whittling them down to a finalist for each project. The winning artist for both St. Andrew\u2019s \u2013 Port St. Lucie-based Pete Koza \u2013 and Mervis Cafe mural artist Sitki Dogan of West Palm Beach, have already produced murals in the Fort Pierce area. According to Dogan\u2019s biography, he produced the Flora Symphony mural at 607 Orange Ave., as well as an interior mural at Fort Pierce City Hall.<\/p>\n
Redevelopment Specialist Sara Delgado revealed the Advisory Committee\u2019s selections that evening.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m here to bring to you the proposed mural locations and the artist submissions for Fiscal Year 26,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen we began the program, we started in the Peacock Arts District. Last fiscal year, we moved to include downtown, [and] this fiscal year we included all CRA districts with a budget of $100,000. In March, I put out a property owner application. [and] we received four applications. The CRA Advisory Committee evaluated all of them and decided to move forward with all four properties. So, we have St. Andrew\u2019s Episcopal Academy, Mervis Cafe & Grill [402 S. 5th St], Elk\u2019s Lodge and DreamChaser Preschool [505 N. 7th St.]\u201d<\/p>\n
Delgado then revealed the artists for each project, beginning with St. Andrew\u2019s Episcopal Academy, which had the largest mural space to fill.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn April, I put out a call for artists,\u201d she continued. \u201cThe CRA Advisory Committee evaluated those artists and decided to move forward with artist Pete Koza for St. Andrew\u2019s Episcopal Academy; Sitki Dogan for Mervis Cafe & Grill; Shannen Mythen [of Port St. Lucie] for Elk\u2019s Lodge 1520; and Inna Parkhomenko [of Jacksonville] for DreamChaser Preschool. So, here we have proposed $20,000 for the mural [at] St. Andrew\u2019s Episcopal Academy from Pete Koza.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chairwoman Linda Hudson was the first to pose a clarification question afterward since the Advisory Committee had to decide between 23 different artist proposals for that particular project.<\/p>\n
\u201cMs. Delgado, do the building owners have input into the choice?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey give me a theme when they apply, and so I put that out in the call for artists,\u201d she replied. \u201cFor DreamChaser Preschool, we have Inna Parkhomenko with an $8,000 budget; For Mervis Cafe & Grill, we have Sitki Dogan, I think this is my favorite one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dogan\u2019s proposed mural image for the restaurant chosen by the committee that pleased Delgado was of a colorful Havana, Cuba streetscape featuring a bright red classic 1957 Chevrolet dominating the scene. Dogan had actually supplied two options for that mural: The first with the car parked at the corner of the building and juxtaposed with a modern Chevrolet passing down the street; and the second with the restored classic vehicle poised in the middle of a street between two buildings. Delgado did specify which option the committee had preferred.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know they just celebrated their 25th anniversary,\u201d Chairwoman Hudson explained in reference to the cafe. \u201cInside they had some kind of prop with the red car, very similar.\u201d<\/p>\n
Delgado wrapped up her presentation with the budgetary figures for that mural and the final mural award.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir budget was $18,000 for that mural,\u201d she said of the Havana mural. \u201cThe last one is Elk\u2019s Lodge #1520 with Shannen Mythen, and that is $15,000. If approved today, I\u2019ll move forward with the agreements and bring that before the Board in June. I have a timeline for all four artists to start June 20.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI love them,\u201d Hudson responded in reference to all the artist submissions. \u201cI looked at the other ones too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Board Member Curtis Johnson Jr. made the only other Board comment to emphasize how the murals were actually being funded.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think these funds that we have dedicated are kind of earmarked for our art program,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The FPRA Board then voted unanimously for approval. The city\u2019s Marketing & Communications Manager Kaitlyn Ballard provided the Hometowns News a few more details a couple of days later.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe FPRA received four property owner applications and 143 artist submissions through the call for artists process for the 2026 FPRA Mural Program,\u201d she said via email May 14. \u201cA total of $100,000 was allocated for the program, with approximately $61,000 designated for the four approved mural locations. At this time, there are no plans to reopen this initiative during the current fiscal year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT PIERCE \u2013 The Fort Pierce Redevelopment Agency Board voted unanimously May 12 to award more than half…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172,563],"class_list":["post-280759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news","tag-st_lucie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}