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Concert hall takes shape
SSU's $100 million performing arts center 20% complete, project on schedule
March 11, 2007
By BOB NORBERG
Concrete pillars and walls and towers of interwoven reinforcing bar give a rough outline of the Green Music Center, now taking shape at Sonoma State University.
Construction of the $100 million performing arts center has reached its first milestone - all of the underground work is done and the project itself is 20 percent complete and on schedule.
"This project is interesting because it is such a special building type," said Christopher Dinno, SSU's senior director of planning and design. "You don't see this going up in other communities or college campuses."
The Green center will have a 1,400-seat concert hall opening to a large lawn patterned after the Tanglewood performing arts facility in Lennox, Mass. The complex also will include a 250-seat recital hall, a restaurant, classrooms and faculty offices.
It is scheduled to be completed in September 2008, but an opening date has not been set.
Two 22-foot-high, 55-foot-wide doors will open the concert hall to a 10,000-square-foot grass spectator embankment, envisioned as sloping so gently it wouldn't even spill a concertgoer's glass of wine.
"I'd be able to sit out in the lawn and I could listen to the music as well as the people sitting inside in chairs," Dinno said.
A 125-foot crane towers over the concert hall, moving concrete forms into place, even as fund-raising efforts continue.
The total cost is now estimated to be $100 million, said Susan Kashack, the university's associate vice president of communications.
It includes $87.7 million that is budgeted for construction; architectural work; contingencies; testing and inspection; and financing costs.
Another $12 million will be needed to pay for such things as the concert hall lobby floor, furniture, storage rooms, rest-rooms, flooring, walkways, the courtyard and enclosures for the mechanical systems, some of which are needed before the concert hall can open.
So far, the university has taken in $42.2 million in donations, including $10 million from telecommunications pioneer Don Green and his wife, Maureen, for whom the complex is named.
The California State University system and revenue bonds are paying the remainder of the construction cost.
SSU has a campaign under way to raise $22 million in donations and by selling naming rights to such things as the concert hall, recital hall and education building.
The money would pay off an $11 million letter of credit used to fund construction, and raise the additional $12 million needed to finish the project.
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