At a time when most art institutions are cutting costs, collectors Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz are adding another significant player to the Miami art scene -- a long-anticipated warehouse space in the Design District to showcase their world-class collection of contemporary art.

The de la Cruzes hope to open the museum-like structure, under construction on 41st Street at North Miami Avenue, to the public during Art Basel Miami Beach in December.

At 30,000 square feet, the three-story building will sport considerable exhibition space and house a library, offices, and basic living quarters, perhaps for an artist in residence.

''I see the warehouse as an extension of my home,'' says Rosa de la Cruz, who for the last 15 years has opened her Key Biscayne house to art lovers. It is an official stop on the Art Basel schedule of VIP activities along with other private collections housed in warehouses in Wynwood and downtown Miami -- The Margulies Collection, the Rubell Family Collection, and the Cisneros-Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO).

''I want the collection to be accessible to the community -- especially to students -- and admission to the space will be free,'' de la Cruz says. ``I want people to use the space, to come and see the art as many times as they want to, to use the library to study.''

The building was designed by Miami's John Marquette, who co-owns the Italian design store Driade Miami and the restaurant Fratelli Lyon in the Design District.

''The space will be something to experience as well,'' Marquette says of the design, with its floating staircase, stately columns, and city views from a top-floor terrace. De la Cruz declines to put a dollar figure on the project but says costs are ``reasonable, and proof that you can build something wonderful and still stay in budget.''

The de la Cruzes, major donors to North Miami's Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), plan the permanent installation of seminal works by two internationally acclaimed artists with Miami connections -- the late Félix González-Torres and Ana Mendieta, Cuban Americans who, de la Cruz believes, have been denied the recognition they deserve in South Florida.

González-Torres' minimalist sculptures and installations posthumously represented the United States in the Venice Biennial in 2007. Mendieta's use of her body for identity-focused art is considered ground breaking.

''They are figures that belong to Miami,'' de la Cruz says, adding that a Torres-González Bird billboard will be installed on the outside of the new building as the symbol that identifies the collection.

Most notably, the de la Cruzes own a significant but fragile work from Mendieta's Sandwoman series, a sculpture made of sand and binder on wood that they plan to install and safeguard on a floating platform on the third floor. The work will be surrounded by Mendieta's photographs of her Earth-inspired works in the rural Cuban town of Jaruco, a video of Mendieta bathing in a river, and drawings from her work in Mexico.

Other artists to be featured prominently in the new space include American Jim Hodges, Argentina's Guillermo Kuitca, and Gabriel Orozco of Mexico.

De la Cruz says that she and her husband will continue to support exhibitions with loans and donations such as their joint gift to MOCA and the Tate Modern in London of the multidisciplinary, multi-artist installation No Ghost Just A Shell, now on view at the Tate into 2010. The de la Cruzes also operated with developer Craig Robins the alternative The Moore Space in the Design District from 2001 to 2008.

''It is wonderful that collectors open their collections to the public,'' says Silvia Karman Cubiñá, who directed Moore Space and is now executive director and chief curator of the Bass Museum of Art. ``This is very generous and enriches Miami with the best contemporary art. These collectors are also very supportive in that they lend work to museums for exhibitions.''

The new, vast space will allow Rosa de la Cruz to organize the couple's extensive international art collection and to rotate pieces into the warehouse.

''Museums don't have the space to showcase collections,'' de la Cruz says. ``I want this space to motivate people, to be something that creates new energy in Miami.''

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