New and longtime Naples residents brought their passions into a Tuesday morning meeting and, in some cases, the financial commitments to realize their visions.

Eager to complete a vision sketched out a decade ago by Miami architect Andres Duany, some 80 locals turned out to a city-coordinated design jam to help envision a more sophisticated, functional and pedestrian-friendly downtown.

The three-hour session, or charrette, was hosted by the Naples Woman's Club, which is at the epicenter of Duany's wish list for a civic center and town square.

A "charrette" is a design term used when a group of folks gather to collaborate on a plan, often breaking into small clusters, then reuniting to create a master list of desired features.

Naples residents on Tuesday sat at 13 tables, each supplied with tissue paper and colored markers, so participants could sketch out their visions for the street between — and surrounding — the von Liebig Art Center and Naples Woman's Club.

Both facilities need more space, and all of downtown suffers from a critical parking shortage.

The Woman's Club is one of Naples' oldest do-good organizations. The von Liebig Art Center is operated by the Naples Art Association, a 50-year-old group responsible for art festivals in the park, and contributing greatly to Naples' recent designation by one researcher as the nation's leading small art town.

Tuesday's brainstorming session produced some novel concepts, including a pedestrian overpass that would link the von Liebig and Woman's Club, and a third-floor rooftop garage/city park combination for the club.

The synchronicity of growth plans gives city residents and officials an opportunity to "create some great public spaces," said Naples Community Redevelopment Agency Manager Chet Hunt.

"Great public spaces create great cities," he said.

The Woman's Club wants to construct a new multi-use building with a 10,000- to 12,000-square-foot footprint and, possibly, several floors.

The current building has 2,000 square feet, and can accommodate 200 seated in the main room, which measures about 1,500 square feet.

George Sypert, a two-year Naples resident, is willing to help parlay that building into something Naples needs and he wants.

A former professor of neurosurgery, Sypert and his wife, Joy, also a neurosurgeon, have a great love for chamber music and a passionate need for an appropriate venue: passionate enough to donate "a few million dollars" to create a truly excellent auditorium with acoustics appropriate for chamber music that can also be used as a lecture hall to seat 350, Sypert said Tuesday.

Sypert said he's been working with Florida Gulf Coast University and its Renaissance Academy. What results could end up as the Woman's Club second floor.

"It will happen somewhere," Sypert said. "My preference is to have this facility here."

The way he envisions the new building, the Woman's Club would have its own entrance. Above it, the Renaissance Academy would build additional classrooms, he said.

The Renaissance Academy has nearly 3,000 students now, Sypert said. Every year, the continuing education institution is "growing exponentially."

"We have a community of very bright seniors, and they don't want to stop learning," Sypert said. A complex like this is going to cost $30 million, but Naples needs $15 million, because of matching state funds, he said.

Participants envisioned a third, rooftop, floor that would host a garden and garage.

Downtown architect Andrea Clark-Brown, who was hired last year by the von Liebig and CRA Advisory Board Chairman Phil McCabe, brought in several concepts that very much appealed to attendees, including ways of optimizing Park Street, as well as the alleys separating the von Liebig from Fifth Avenue South and the Woman's Club from Fifth Avenue South.

The alleys currently dead-end behind buildings, Clark-Brown said.

Those alleys could become lanes, Hunt agreed after the session.

Incorporating Duany's and Clark-Brown's ideas, Hunt said a lovely green square could open up the current Park Street — between Fifth Avenue South and Sixth Avenue South — to include not so much a traffic "circle" as traffic "square."

Susan Earl, a Naples Art Association director, said her team pretty much followed Clark-Brown's plan, but moved the garage.

They favored transforming one side of the von Liebig into a garden, and installing a foundation.

"We thought it would be great to have a sculpture garden," Earl said.

Architect David Corbin said his teammates incorporated Sypert's FGCU desires into their plan, and carved out a nice roundabout "instead of Park Street dead-ending into the parking area."

If the Renaissance Center moved into the neighborhood, as part of the Woman's Club, it would "completely change the dynamic of the whole neighborhood," Corbin said.

In order for the von Liebig to retain its own identity, his team thought it would be best if the art center expanded to the south.

Those initially alarmed by the notion of rooftop parking were calmed when Hunt showed slides of numerous other cityscapes, featuring liner buildings. A liner building is a structure that wraps around a parking lot or garage in order to mask it from the street.

Hunt said the next step is to take all of the concepts and have a professional mesh them into a rendering and schematics.

After that, everyone present at Tuesday's session will be invited back to view — and review — the results, he said.