Manjunath Pendakur, dean of Florida Atlantic Universityís Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, at the site of a new multi purpose building at FAU in Boca Raton. (Bill Ingram /The Palm Beach Post)

For decades, Boca Raton has been something of a cultural second-stringer to West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale. The pink-hued city could tout its abundance of pricey stores and restaurants, but it fell far short in arts venues.

That may no longer be the case.

With the opening last month of a 750-seat performing arts center at Lynn University and a multiuse cultural facility at Mizner Park, and the slated opening this year of a four-screen movie theater complex for foreign and indie cinema at Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton is poised to become a cultural hub unto itself.

These newer facilities join established ones, including the Mizner Park Amphitheater and FAU Kaye Performing Arts Auditorium, making Boca suddenly a destination for everything from symphonic concerts to full-scale Broadway shows. And that’s not factoring in such attractions as the Boca Raton Museum of Art and Caldwell Theatre.

“It’s a natural evolution,” said Charlie Siemon, a longtime Boca attorney and cultural booster who was behind the plans for the Mizner Park Amphitheater and serves as president of the new multiuse Mizner Park Cultural Arts Center, located in the former space of Mort Walker’s International Museum of Cartoon Art.

With its concentration of arts-loving retirees and families seeking entertainment opportunities, Boca seemed primed for a plenitude of venues. And at various points, plans have been discussed for new facilities, including a Kravis Center-style, $40 million-plus concert hall at Mizner Park.

But the rough economy of recent years has made it difficult to realize any large-scale cultural ambitions. It also has made it difficult for some existing groups, most notably the Caldwell Theatre, to balance their budgets.

So Boca’s cultural evolution appears to be rooted in modest venues that take less money to build and that fill specific niches within the community.

Jan McArt and Jon Robertson at the new Keith and Elaine Johnson Wold Performing Arts Center at Lynn University in Boca Raton. (Bill Ingram /The Palm Beach Post)

Consider the new venue at Lynn University, the $14.9 million Keith C. and Elaine Johnson Wold Performing Arts Center. It’s not the opera house-scale of the 2,200-seat seat Kravis or 2,700-seat Broward Center in Fort Lauderdale, but it’s plenty bigger than the school’s existing theater, a 200-seat recital hall.

That makes it the perfect venue to accommodate the school’s burgeoning theater program, led by local arts legend Jan McArt, and robust music program, formerly connected to Boca’s world-renowned Harid Conservatory.

It also makes it the professional-caliber midsize venue that Boca long has lacked. Previously, local arts groups, including the Lynn orchestra, often had to settle for performing in high school auditoriums.

“This kind of completes the picture,” said McArt, who plans on presenting a few student shows a year in addition to welcoming touring artists and programs. (Although the venue hosted a private concert by Bernadette Peters recently, it formally opens on April 17 with a performance by Mitzi Gaynor.)

It completes the picture without putting any large financial burden on the university. More than half the money for the facility came from the namesake donor.

In the case of the new Mizner Park Cultural Arts Center, the cost is even less — $1.5 million. The money came from Palm Beach County in an effort to keep the space alive as a cultural destination after the cartoon art museum, the previous tenant, shut down in 2001.

While nowhere near as ambitious as the Lynn center, the Mizner Park one is a flexible space that can be used for everything from off-Broadway-style theater to gallery-style art shows.

The center has hosted events connected to the recently concluded Festival of the Arts BOCA and will be the site for a Florida Atlantic University series celebrating great writers. Potentially on tap: a summer cabaret series. Siemon is seeking funding to host as many as 50 events next season.

But the venue that may end up most putting Boca on the cultural map is FAU’s Living Room movie theater complex, which is part of a building under construction at the school’s Schmidt College of Arts and Letters.

The project is designed to bring the best in foreign and independent cinema, from current movies to retrospectives, to an area that usually devotes one screen in a multiplex to challenging film fare. The theaters, which each seat up to 50, will double as classrooms for FAU’s film studies program.

Best of all for FAU: The $3 million project didn’t require any fund raising. That’s because it’s a joint venture with Living Room Theaters, a for-profit Portland, Ore.-based art-house operator.

Living Room contributed $1.5 million to FAU for the construction; the state of Florida matched the amount.

When the theater complex opens in December, Manjunath Pendakur, dean of FAU’s Schmidt College, predicts it will become a big draw, especially with Boca locals.

The FAU educator is not surprised at the city’s evolution as a stand-alone destination for the arts.

“We have a very well-educated community that is hungry for culture,” he said.