Second year in a row from this magazine that St. Pete has been ranked #1 in Mid-Sized Cities for their art influences. The new Dali probably added more favor to St. Pete, but the city also has the Chihuly Gallery and Art Museum which helps a lot too. With cities like Miami, Minneapolis, and Kansas City also being included in this list; it's quite an accomplishment for St. Petersburg. And not to forget Tampa, she was ranked #7 in this list as well. Congrats for both cities! Hopefully we can only improve on those ranks and have Tampa and St. Petersburg ranked #1 and #2 on that list.

http://www.americanstyle.com/2011/05/top-25-mid-sized-cities-2/

I'm not surprised at all, art has become a huge community in St. Petersburg. The Chihuly had 100,000 visitors in less than a year, and the Dali had 100,000 visitors in three months(compared to 200,000 for an entire year before the new building).

Also the Museum of Fine Arts doubled it's building size in 2008.
The Mindy Soloman Gallery opened at Ovation.
And numerous other galleries on Beach and Central Ave.

I'm pretty confident in saying that the arts community has transformed Downtown St.Petersburg.