For Immediate Release
Date: April 3, 2014
Citizens will have an opportunity to review and offer feedback on the proposed conceptual design for the new Cultural Arts Center during a public open house tonight and through a new online feature that launches today.
Project architect Patrick Shay will present an overview of the proposed design at 5:30 p.m. TODAY (Thursday, April 3), at the Cultural Affairs Department’s Black Box Theater, 9 W. Henry St. A model of the proposed center will be present, and comment cards will be available to fill out.
The public can also submit comments and read about the project by visiting www.savannahga.gov/artscenter. The site will periodically be updated with new information, including video content, and comments can be viewed online.
Both online and in-person feedback will be considered as the project architect and City staff continue to refine the design through the summer.
About the CenterThe SPLOST-funded facility will be built at the vacant lot at Montgomery Street and Oglethorpe Avenue, a strategically important location at the U.S. 17 and I-16 gateways into downtown Savannah. It will replace the City’s current gallery, Black Box Theater, visual arts studios, and the Cultural Affair’s Commission and contracts for art services administrative area, which now occupy leased space at Whitaker and Henry streets. The new location will neighbor the Jepson Center for the Arts, Telfair Museum, SCAD Museum of Art, and Savannah Children’s Museum, creating artistic synergy in an area that has become Savannah’s new cultural hub.
The new Cultural Arts Center will be one of the most technologically advanced buildings in Savannah to meet modern performance needs. It was designed with significant input from Savannah’s cultural arts community, and will feature a 500-seat theater, a flexible 125-seat performance space with removable seats, as well as dedicated performing arts classrooms, visual arts studios and gallery space. The various uses will radiate from a central multi-story rotunda, that will serve as the Center’s focal point. The outside will include a piazza and park-like setting, suitable for outdoor events and classes.
The plan calls for this one-way block of Montgomery to be restored to two-way, with northbound traffic circling around a partially restored Elbert Square, which was mostly destroyed decades ago.