PSU again discusses performing arts facility

Excitement about a proposed fine and performing arts building is growing among Pittsburg State University officials.

Though plans for the building are still in their infancy, Pitt State President Steve Scott told administrators at a meeting with architects from newly-hired firm ACI/Frangkiser Hutchens, Inc. Friday morning he senses more excitement about the building than he’s seen in a long time.

“I want to energize the campus (around this project),” Scott said Friday. “Hiring an architect is a huge step forward.”

Scott highlighted the new arts center at a faculty meeting Thursday as one of three strategic issues he wants to address during the coming school year.  The other two strategic issues includes expanding the Kansas Technology Center’s facilities and programs, an improving Pitt State athletics.

The arts center would replace Carney Hall, which was built in 1919 and leveled in 1980 due to structural defects. At the time, Carney Hall, which stood where Heckert-Wells Hall now stands, housed the departments of home economics, chemical and physical science, biology and agriculture. But, according to university literature, it also served as the campus cultural and social hub, and it’s 3,000-seat auditorium played host to numerous lectures, concerts and plays.

Beyond having a center and auditorium dedicated to culture and the arts, Scott said he envisions orchestrating a series of lectures similar to the Landon Lecture Series at Kansas State University, which regularly brings in prominent United States and world leaders such as Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagain, George W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev.

“We don’t have a lecture series that regularly graces campus and inspires (provocative) thinking,” Scott said.
“We want those events on campus. And we have outstanding work going on in these areas, despite not having a center.”

Stephen Meats, Interim Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, said at the meeting Friday he recalled standing on the Oval when the wrecking ball first swung.

“It left a gaping hole,” Meats said. “I, for one, am just overjoyed; not just for the
campus, but for the community as a whole.”

Filling the void that was created when Carney Hall was razed has been on Pitt State’s wish list for 30 years. Scott said the project is finally underway thanks to an anonymous $10 million pledge, $6 million of which “is already in hand.”

“I think that’s the dream of the donor,” he said.

Before getting down to brass tacks with the architects, several university administrators voiced their enthusiasm for the project. Rhona Shand, associate professor of art, said she is looking forward to a completed arts center. She said she regularly sees students go out of state or to other venues to perform, rather than being able to showcase their talents on their own campus.

“I would like a program where students don’t have to do things despite what we don’t have here,” she said.
The center would also be bridge between the university and area residents, said provost Lynette Olson.
“It’s an excellent opportunity to show students that a key piece of being an artist is being involved with the community in which you live,” Olson said.

Project architects, Larry Diehl, Michael Kautz and Duane Cash, have solid pedigrees. Diehl, the lead architect, said his firm will work with Boston, Mass., firm William Rawn Associates. Rawn was ranked the number one architecture firm in the country on Architect Magazine’s Top 50 List in 2009 and received the 2008 Distinguished Achievement Award in Architectural Design of Theaters from the United States Institute of Technology. While ACI/Frangkiser Hutchens is the architect of record on the project, Rawn, whose designs include the Lincoln Center Plaza Theater, the Babson College Performing Arts Center, Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, and the Music Center at Strathmore, will design the building.

Diehl said Rawn will engage some of the top theater and acoustical design consultants in the country as they plan PSU’s new center.

The timeline for the design is “aggressive,” Diehl said, and will begin with a survey of the site in the coming weeks. Approval of the program for the building and setting a budget, two of the most critical steps, is expected to take place early in the fall semester. Officials said they expect to approve the final design this spring.

Doug Johnson, project executive from William Rawn Associates, said a strong effort will be made to gather campus input, especially from the principle users of the center, including not only the fine and performing arts faculty, but students and patrons, as well.

“This is a highly participatory process,” Johnson said.

Some officials may already have mentally spent the pledge money. But Scott nipped any notions of grandiosity in the bud during his Thursday speech.

“Over the coing months, the project architects will help us align our dreams with the reality of what we will actually have to spend,” he said.

And the project still looms in the distance.

“It’s a big step,” said spokesman Chris Kelly. “But it’s just the beginning of a long process."