When Jennifer Rominiecki, a Manhattan native, was named president and CEO of Marie Selby Botanical Gardens a decade ago, her goal, from the beginning, was focused on big changes. She essentially sought to transform the garden, long a prominent gem in Sarasota cultural and tourism circles, into a global masterpiece, and in doing so secure the nonprofit’s future.
This ongoing change is happening through a three-phase project at Selby’s main downtown campus, on 15 acres off the Sarasota Bay on Mound Street. Phase one, a $51 million project, is complete and phase two is expected to begin by the end of 2025. That $60.9 million phase includes a conservatory to house one of the world’s largest scientifically documented and diverse collections of orchids and bromeliads.
Rominiecki previously spent about two decades at established cultural institutions, including the New York Botanical Garden, the Metropolitan Opera and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
At the New York Botanical Garden, she was special assistant to the president. One of her duties there involved a seven-year campaign to raise $479 million.
At Selby, she saw a chance to make exciting changes to secure the nonprofit’s success for decades. Phase 1 of the transformation opened in January 2024. It includes a new parking structure, dubbed the Living Energy Access Facility or LEAF; a new restaurant, gift shop and welcome center; new research and office facilities; and the conversion of the terminus of Palm Avenue from a street into a pedestrian walkway. The LEAF nearly doubled parking from 270 spaces to 450, and the project includes a solar array atop the structure that makes it the first net-positive energy botanical gardens in the world.
Visit Sarasota County named Jennifer Rominiecki the Voice of Sarasota during National Tourism and Travel Week in 2024.
Photo by Lori Sax
But getting to groundbreaking, and moving dirt, wasn’t easy. Rominiecki had to unite neighbors, many who initially protested the expansion, and build community consensus. That consensus took many turns, meetings, sessions and conversations with a variety of groups and officials. Project plans were tweaked multiple times.
On the customer experience side, meanwhile, Rominiecki worked with other museum curators to bring international exhibits to Selby, pairing famous art by Marc Chagall, Paul Gauguin and Andy Warhol with air plants of the world
Selby also trademarked “The Living Museum,” to describe the changing exhibits to encourage repeat visitation. That proved to be a shrewd move. “We want to ensure visitors to Selby Gardens always have a reason to return,” she says. “We’re always giving people a reason to come back.”
And that seems to be happening: attendance has doubled under her tenure to 310,000 annual visitors, says Rominiecki, 51, who chooses the exhibits.
Rominiecki has led other areas of growth for the gardens, which were founded in 1973. That’s when Sarasota resident and passionate gardener Marie Selby bequeathed her former home and property, according to the organization’s website, “for the enjoyment of the general public.” The organization had $98.93 million in assets and $22.72 million in revenue in its most recent fiscal year, public filings show. The new operating model Rominiecki instituted, say officials, has also led to a 128% increase in membership and 135% gain in overall earned revenues.
In 2024, Time magazine named Selby — with its air plants, Banyan trees and mangroves — one of the world’s 100 greatest places. Articles about Selby have been published in other national publications, including USA Today, which named it one of the best botanical gardens of 2025.
The Wall Street Journal named Selby’s completed first phase as one of the best architectural projects of 2024. “The centerpiece is the Morganroth Family Living Energy Access Facility (LEAF), which, according to Selby, contains “a garden-to-plate restaurant, a new gift shop, vertical gardens and a nearly 50,000-square-foot solar array,” states the WSJ article.
Rominiecki has received accolades and praise for her efforts locally, too. Visit Sarasota County named her the Voice of Sarasota, for example, during National Tourism and Travel Week last year. More recognition, a bit more unusual, came from inside Selby this past May. That’s when Rominiecki had a new species of a flowering plant named for her, the Drymonia rominieckiae. The honor stems from a Marie Selby Botanical Gardens botanist who discovered four new species in the African violet family, or Gesneriaceae, while researching plant species on the eastern slopes of the Andean rainforest in South America.
Sarasota Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Heather Kasten says Rominiecki — chair-elect of the chamber — is the just-right leader at the just-right time for Selby. “The impact Jennifer has had on Marie Selby Botanical Garden is absolutely unparalleled,” Kasten says. “People want to come from all over the world to Selby.”
Lakewood Ranch-based Willis A. Smith Construction President and CEO John LaCivita, contractor for the Selby expansion, also praises Rominiecki for her long-term vision. “Selby has never had (this) kind of recognition before,” LaCivita says.
While Rominiecki is known for building consensus, she’s also not known to take no for an answer, LaCivita adds. More importantly perhaps, he says, she “delivers on her promise.”
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