Exclusive: UTPA announces new plans for fine arts facility
By Joey Gomez
Rio Grande Guardian
EDINBURG, Oct. 9 - Plans to build a standalone fine arts facility at the University of Texas-Pan American have been scrapped, according to university officials.
Earlier this week UTPA officials revealed that, instead, the university will renovate its current fine arts complex, possibly by late 2012 or early 2013. A market feasibility study previously conducted by UTPA found that the $40 million allocated to the university does not cover the cost of a proposed standalone facility.
“We are going to do a major renovation, the building will be completely gutted and it will have new mechanical systems, new acoustical systems, new lighting, and everything will be brand new,” said Marianella Franklin, UTPA’s director for sustainability programs who has been overseeing the project.
“We are really hoping we can increase the capacity as well. Based on the programming that we did, we are going to have a wonderful facility.”
Appeals by UTPA to key legislators in Austin failed during the 81st legislative session, when the university requested an increase of the total funds allocated for a new fine arts facility to $70 million. Franklin said the status of the current economy factored into the decision to renovate the current facility instead. The total cost of the facility is still not determined.
“We were looking at the possibility of having $70 million to build the new facility. We would have had to request additional monies or to do a campaign for additional funding and we opted, (differently) because of what is happening with the economy,” Franklin said. “We are very conscious of it, our solution is basically put our monies into the existing facilities and renovate it completely.”
Holzman Moss, the architecture firm selected to renovate the current facility, specializes in the design of fine arts facilities, according to Franklin. The firm designed the current Radio City Music Hall, the Brooklyn Children’s Museum and closer to home designed the Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi Performing Arts Center among many others.
Design and schematics for the renovation project at UTPA are expected within the next six to eight months, Franklin said. “The students are doing such wonderful job and they are in need of a facility,” she said. “This is an old facility, and if you take a look at all the facilities, we have over 51 buildings and of course we try to address the needs of our faculty and staff and most importantly our students.”
At least one more facility is planned in Edinburg by next year. In August, the City Council approved a development agreement between the city and Doctors Hospital at Renaissance to have the upcoming Edinburg Medical Conference Center operational within 18 months.
The 54,000 square foot medical conference center would generate about 293 jobs in the Rio Grande Valley. The facility would be comprised of a 552 seat conference room, a 620 seat capacity ballroom, and an 800 square foot state of the art auditorium that could be the home to the Rio Grande Valley Symphony Orchestra or ballet performances. A proposed hotel is also slated for construction at the facility.
DHR first unveiled its plans to the city for the proposed Medical Conference Center at a presentation by the Warren Group, principal architect of the facility on June 16.
At the meeting architects emphasized that the facility would provide a venue to the medical community to inform the Rio Grande Valley of medical resources and procedures available in the area. It would also support health awareness programs in a state of the art medical campus, and enhance medical education programs by partnering with local universities and colleges.
Franklin said UTPA’s market feasibility study intended to make sure that whatever venue selected by the university was not one that was going to compete with any other facility. A recent meeting between UTPA and DHR assured that there would be no competition between the two, Franklin said.
“This is a completely separate facility. We did not want to compete with the Dodge Arena, we have no intentions of competing with the (McAllen) Convention Center and we have no intentions of competing with this particular conference center or performing center that they will have at DHR,” Franklin said.
“We did meet with all the entities to make sure that at any time there would be no type of threat of competition with anyone. The meeting with the group from DHR took place not to long ago and it is for a separate purpose or function so by no means would we be competing in any form or fashion.”
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