Vero Beach Museum of Art

The Vero Beach Museum of Art is a nonprofit art museum and art school at 3001 Riverside Park Drive, inside the city's Riverside Park on the Vero Beach barrier island.

The museum lists its address as 3001 Riverside Park Drive, Vero Beach, Florida 32963, with a main line of (772) 231-0707 (VBMA visit page). The City of Vero Beach facility listing for Riverside Park, at 3200 Riverside Park Drive, counts a museum and a theater among the park's features, alongside boat ramps, tennis courts, a playground and an on-leash dog area, and names the Recreation Department, 772-567-2144, as contact (City of Vero Beach Riverside Park listing).

The building sits on city land under a lease. The Vero Beach City Council approved a Second Amendment to Amended Lease Agreement with Vero Beach Museum of Art, Inc. on January 13, 2026, as consent agenda item 3-B, which the mayor pulled for an explanation before the vote; City Manager Monte Falls explained that the amendment put the actual legal description of the leased area into the record, and the vote was unanimous (City Council minutes, January 13, 2026). Last verified: October 18, 2026, against the city park listing and council minutes, a state historical marker, and the museum's visit, history and building project pages.

The Vero Beach Museum of Art galleries open Monday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Sunday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., and adult admission is $12.

Last admission is 4:15 p.m. on weekdays and Saturdays and 3:45 p.m. on Sundays, and the children's Art Zone closes at 4 p.m. daily (VBMA visit page). The museum store keeps Tuesday to Saturday hours of 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Sunday hours of 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Prices below are the museum's own.

Free days cut the cost further: admission is free all day on the second Saturday of each month, on Mother's Day, Father's Day and Grandparents' Day, and for Bank of America cardholders on the first full weekend of each month (VBMA visit page). Through Museums for All, a visitor with an active SNAP EBT card gets free admission for up to four people. A free 2:00 p.m. standing docent tour runs every day except the second Saturday.

The Vero Beach Museum of Art opened on January 31, 1986 as the Center for the Arts, built debt-free by the Alliance for the Arts with $2.5 million raised from local private donors.

The museum's history says the Alliance for the Arts was established in 1978 solely to create a regional center for teaching and appreciating the arts, and that it changed its own name to the Center for the Arts before the Riverside Park building opened in 1986 (VBMA history). In 1989 the center renegotiated its lease with the City of Vero Beach to add land to the west and north. The American Association of Museums first accredited it in March 1997, and a 1999 expansion campaign doubled the building to 54,509 square feet.

The present name came in 2002, and the museum now describes itself as a premier cultural destination on the Treasure Coast and one of the most visited art institutions of its scale in the nation (VBMA history). In 1987 the outdoor sculpture studio was renovated into what the museum calls the most complete foundry and fabrication facility on Florida's east coast. The Alice and Jim Beckwith Sculpture Park followed in 2007 and grew in 2011 and 2012, the timeline says, and in 2023 a single exhibition, Rolling Sculptures: Streamlined Art Deco Automobiles and Motorcycles, drew 40,000 visitors. By 2025 the museum reported annual attendance above 78,000 (VBMA history). It marked its 40th year with a community celebration on February 14, 2026, and city and county officials honored it with a proclamation the same year.

Museum in the Garden is the Vero Beach Museum of Art's new two-story building and campus in Riverside Park, designed by Allied Works with Unknown Studio, with construction hard costs of $90.5 million.

The project site says the new building, with a rooftop terrace, will largely replace the existing one-story facility, shrink the museum's overall built footprint and add about one and a half acres of green space to Riverside Park (VBMA Museum in the Garden). Gallery space will more than double, from 10,000 to 22,000 square feet, across 13 galleries. The first floor is planned to be free and open to all, with a Modern and Contemporary gallery, the Art Zone for children, a cafe with courtyard and the store.

The land under it was reset in 2025, when the museum says it renegotiated its lease with the City of Vero Beach, extending its leasehold to approximately 7.60 acres, broke ground and opened the public phase of a $126 million capital campaign (VBMA history). The January 13, 2026 council amendment recorded the leased area's legal description (City Council minutes, January 13, 2026). The project site's update list reports $115 million committed to the campaign so far (VBMA Museum in the Garden). Those campaign figures are the museum's own.

The Vero Beach Museum of Art says it will stay open in its current building through mid-February 2027, then move programs and classes to satellite locations until the new building opens.

The project FAQ gives that schedule but no opening date for the new building (VBMA Museum in the Garden). Some spaces have already closed: the visit page says the sculpture parks and cafe are closed indefinitely while the campus is improved, and that a vehicular turnaround, a pedestrian walkway and new handicap-accessible parking spots have been added during construction (VBMA visit page).

A major print show is scheduled before the move. The museum lists Hokusai, Hiroshige, Hasui: Japanese Landscapes in Print from November 21, 2026 to February 7, 2027, works by Katsushika Hokusai and Utagawa Hiroshige alongside modern prints by Kawase Hasui (VBMA upcoming exhibitions). That run ends before the mid-February 2027 move. The city's minutes carry a different closing date: at the September 22, 2026 Vero Beach City Council meeting Mayor John Cotugno reported the show would run through February 27, 2027 (City Council minutes, September 22, 2026). The museum's own listing is the one to plan by, and the museum answers at (772) 231-0707.

Parking at the Vero Beach Museum of Art is free in Riverside Park, reached from the mainland by State Road 60 east over the Merrill Barber Bridge.

The museum's directions run from I-95 at Exit 147 and US 1 east on State Road 60 to the beachside, across the Merrill Barber bridge, then right at the first traffic light into Riverside Park; visitors must use designated spaces to avoid City parking violations (VBMA visit page). The Bridges marker at Royal Palm Pointe explains the crossing: a parade of Model T automobiles crossed the first bridge to span the Indian River on Labor Day 1920, making Vero the first community with a bridge to Orchid Island, a Merrill P. Barber Bridge followed in the 1950s after lobbying by the state senator it is named for, and in the 1990s that bascule span was replaced by a fixed concrete arch bridge tall enough to see the Atlantic Ocean from the top (The Bridges historical marker). The old causeway and bridgehead became Royal Palm Pointe, a residential and commercial corridor with a city park on the river, on the mainland side of the same crossing.

Inside, the museum has a barrier-free ramp at the north main entrance, free manual wheelchairs on a first come, first served basis, and free admission for companions or aides of visitors with disabilities; pets are not allowed, but trained service animals are welcome (VBMA visit page). Riverside Park around it is a city park with restrooms, picnic shelters and a walking track, so a museum stop combines easily with the park (Riverside Park listing).