Blue Bamboo Seeks Rent Decrease or Other Changes to Lease

The music venue opened in the city building that was once a library last year but has failed to secure upper floor tenants to help cover rent that is scheduled to increase in August

June 22, 2026

By Beth Kassab

The Blue Bamboo will ask city commissioners this week for rent relief, changes to its lease that could allow for a private school or a commercial tenant on its upper floors or other changes that Executive Director Jeff Flowers says is necessary to sustain the group that transformed the old city library into a performing arts venue.

A City Commission work session is scheduled for Thursday afternoon to discuss a series of options proposed by Flowers.

In August, Blue Bamboo’s lease on the city-owned building is scheduled to double from $11,000 per month to $22,000 per month.

“Current earned revenue from performances and traditional nonprofit arts tenancy alone is insufficient to sustain this increase,” reads a memorandum from Flowers to the city.

A reckoning over the lease is playing out a year after the nonprofit held its first performance in the city space followed quickly by upheaval when Central Florida Vocal Arts, the original tenant slated to take the second floor and help pay the rent, walked away from the deal and then, a few months later, the death of Blue Bamboo founder Chris Cortez from brain cancer.

Since then, Flowers, a former Maitland city commissioner and Blue Bamboo board member who financed the early construction of the new venue, took over leadership of the small nonprofit and has tried to secure new tenants to occupy the second and third floors.

His recent proposal for an artificial-intelligence-driven private school run by a Winter Park couple is still an option, according to the memorandum, though the city attorney has suggested the lease with the city would need to be modified to allow for a school. The City Commission was scheduled to consider the school option in May, but Flowers pulled the item from the agenda to allow time for this week’s work session.

Flowers said the Blue Bamboo has hosted nearly 200 events so far and invested $2.3 million, including more than $1 million in grants, in renovating the building. Orange County pledged nearly $1 million in the form of a Tourist Development Tax grant toward the project.

City spokeswoman Clarissa Howard confirmed the Blue Bamboo remains current on its lease payments to date.

Any changes to future rent amounts or other changes to the lease will be a policy decision made by the Commission.

The elected officials could decide to offer the Blue Bamboo a rent reduction or changes to the lease that would make it easier for the organization to sublease out the second and third floors. Or the Commission could decide to hold to the original lease and potentially sell the building or use it for a different purpose if the Blue Bamboo can’t continue to meet the terms.

The arrangement is likely to be complicated by intensified budget pressures facing Winter Park and other local governments as Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature are pushing voters to approve property tax cuts on the November ballot, a measure that would result in significant revenue reductions for cities and counties.

Mayor Sheila DeCiccio was the lone vote against the Blue Bamboo lease in 2024 after she questioned the group’s financial wherewithal to follow through on the terms it proposed to the city.

Cortez and Flowers assured the commission at the time that the group’s business plan was viable.

Then-Commissioner Todd Weaver championed the Blue Bamboo from the dais and joined the Blue Bamboo’s board of directors after he left office and is now listed as its vice president.

Awarding the lease for the old library to the Blue Bamboo ended the city’s years-long quest to find a use for the prominent building left vacant after the Library & Events Center opened on Morse Boulevard at the end of 2021.

Before the music venue made a play for the space on New England Avenue and visible from S.R. 426, Rollins College was the frontrunner to get the building and repurpose it into a new art museum.

Now the building could be vacant once again Flowers conceded in his memorandum to the city.

The seventh and final option presented by Flowers is for the Blue Bamboo to relocate elsewhere.

On Thursday, commissioners are slated to discuss the matter but are prohibited from taking votes during a work session. The lease is likely to be up for an official vote sometime this summer.

WinterParkVoiceEditor@gmail.com