The Lawrence Arts Center has reopened its search for an executive director.

Dan Sabatini, the architect chairing the search committee, said this week that negotiations had ended with the lone finalist for the position and that the committee again was accepting applications.

“I think most of the artists in Lawrence are looking for us to get this thing done,” Sabatini said. “We’re looking for the best way to expedite it, but we don’t want to settle. We want the best person for the job.”

When the search committee convened in January – shortly after longtime director Ann Evans retired – the goal was to have a director hired by Aug. 1, when the Arts Center’s fiscal year began.

By mid-June, the committee had narrowed the approximately 30 applicants to one – Talena Mara, a former education director at New York City Opera who also has taught at the Juilliard School in New York.

But Sabatini said that when negotiations began, “between all of us, we just couldn’t work out a good deal.” He said Mara “was second-guessing whether she wanted to move here.”

Mara couldn’t be reached for comment.

Sabatini said the new goal is to have an executive director in place in 60 to 90 days. June Jones, an arts center board member who had been an interim executive director, has left the position to pursue graduate school, leaving other staff members to share responsibilities until a leader is named.

Sabatini said he’s hoping the search committee can do more direct recruiting of potential candidates. Those who already have applied also may be reconsidered.

“We might revisit some of those,” he said. “But for the most part, we feel like what would best serve us is to ask for a new group of people.”