Artistic Cohabitation

The new University Center for the Arts upgrades CSU’s performance arts programs

By Chryss Cada

Renovation of Fort Collins' old high school into a collaborative new arts center has brought Colorado State University's performance arts under one roof for the first time.

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The facade of Fort Collins’ most iconic building remains relatively unchanged, but its interior has undergone a dramatic transformation.

Built in 1924, the old Fort Collins High School is now home to the 225,550-sq-ft Colorado State University Center for the Arts. The old gyms and classrooms have been converted into learning and performance venues for the university’s music, dance, theater and arts programs.

“We wanted to capitalize on the pieces and parts of the building that the community loves while creating a new facility for 21st Century,” says Jennifer Cordes of SlaterPaull Architects of Denver, the lead architect on the project. “The challenges came from rebuilding an old high school that didn’t take any of these new uses into account.”

Comprehensive Approach The new facility houses five performance venues: the Griffin Concert Hall, University Theatre and Studio Theatre in the Bohemian Theatre Complex, University Dance Theatre and the Organ Recital Hall.

Photo by Fred J. Fuhrmeister, Time Frame Photography

In addition to performance space, the old high school is now home to 11 classrooms and seminar rooms; composition, computer and piano labs; the largest instrumental rehearsal hall in the state; ensemble and performance libraries; and two large acting labs.

Also, a computer-aided design lab; costume and scenic shops and storage; three dance studios totaling more than 6,500 sq ft; 36 soundproof rehearsal rooms; a new design studio, digital lab, lighting lab and sound/video booth; and teaching studios, offices and support spaces.

The UCA includes the research facilities of the Center for Biomedical Research in Music, a leading center in research in music perception and neurorehabilitation.

Previously, the departments were scattered across campus and competed for limited performance space. Dance students rehearsed in cramped, makeshift studios in the general services building and music students practiced in rooms without acoustical insulation.

Photo by Bill Cotton, CSU

“This comprehensive approach takes the university to the next level,” says Michael Thaut, co-director of the School of the Arts and chairman of the Department of Music, Theatre and Dance. “The best artistic facilities in the world allow for synergy between the disciplines, and now we take our place among them.”

New Orleans-based Howard Performance Architecture, which worked on the project in tandem with SlaterPaull, specializes in performing arts venues and has built 150 such facilities. Michael Howard, the firm’s founder, says he believes in “cohabitation” of the arts programs.

“People stop on their way to class to see what other students are doing, and before you know it, you have collaborations springing up between majors that might not otherwise cross paths,” he adds. “CSU has done it better than it has ever been done before.”

Phased Funding All the school’s programs have seen substantial growth while the UCA has been under construction. Most dramatically, the music program has doubled in size, from 200 to 400 students, in the past seven years.

Funding issues spread the construction of the UCA out into three phases. The project initially began in 1995 when Fort Collins High School closed its doors and the university purchased the building. Selective demolition was carried out in 2000, but construction stopped when state funding was rescinded in the aftermath of Sept. 11.

“Right about the time we had figured out our plans for the building, we lost funding,” says Cass Beitler, CSU’s project manager. “But donors came forward—apparently there are a lot of people in Fort Collins who wanted to see CSU have a stronger arts program.”

A vote by CSU’s student government increased student fees in spring 2005 and provided $29.6 million for the project. The balance of funding for the $45-million project came from private donations, including the Bohemian Foundation, Griffin Foundation, Kenneth and Myra Monfort Foundation, Avenir Foundation and Serimus Foundation.

Getting Started GE Johnson Construction Co. of Colorado Springs and Denver started construction on the project’s first phase, the 550-seat Edna Rizley Griffin Concert Hall, in 2003. Pillars on the exterior of the building pay homage to those on the exterior of the adjacent former high school. Otherwise, the building is a study in clean, modern lines.

“The buildings are a juxtaposition of the old and new,” Thaut says “The building itself had to be a work of art. CSU was open to the importance of aesthetics for this building.”

SlaterPaull’s Cordes saw the project all the way through.

“I feel it was important to the community of Fort Collins that the building has a high-end, elegant feel,” she says.

Inside the concert hall, GE Johnson’s work can be heard as well as seen. “These projects are all about acoustics, which can be a little scary when you don’t really know what it’s going to sound like until it’s done,” says Chris Renn, GE Johnson’s project superintendent.

GE Johnson also built the Vilar Center in Beaver Creek and the Jackson Hole Center for the Arts.

The Griffin concert hall features articulated walls and six layers of drywall to ensure perfect sound. Acoustics were important throughout the building, but nowhere more so than in the Instrument Rehearsal Hall in the north addition, which was built to allow 200 band members to practice inside.

“We built this room not just to keep the right levels of noise in, but also to keep noise out,” Renn says. “There is a (freight) train that runs only 150 yd away six times a day.”

In order to sound insulate the room, the ceiling in the room is spring isolated, walls are double partitioned and the floors float rather than being anchored to the building.

Making the Old New The final stage of the renovation was originally scheduled to be the first, but when funding was canceled, the building sat unused for five years.

“We had to go back in and reverify everything because we didn’t know what was left,” Cordes says. “The mechanical system was not in operation, there were roof leaks. It was in really bad shape.”

Photo by Fred J. Fuhrmeister, Time Frame Photography

CSU also wanted to salvage as many materials from the original building as possible. In addition to the historic 1924 building shell, seating from the original theater, hardwood flooring from the gymnasium, metal and wood stair banisters, linoleum flooring and more than 10,000 lb of recycled building materials were reused.

“This renovation was the most complex I’ve worked on,” CSU’s Beitler says. “You’re working with distinctly different entities which each need their own specifications, and they each have to be isolated from the other.”

The new spaces include the University Art Museum and Avenir Museum of Design and Merchandising (both scheduled to open in April) and the 200-seat University Dance Theatre, the only venue in Northern Colorado built specifically for dance performance.

The conversion of an old auditorium into the 285-seat Organ Recital Hall was one of the toughest parts of the renovation. A boiler room and an art gallery beneath the hall and a wall of original glass block windows to the outside presented acoustical issues.

“I remember we were all a little nervous the first time professor (Bob) Bacon sat down to play it (the organ),” Cordes says. “We listened in the recital hall, and it sounded beautiful, and then we all ran to areas outside and beneath it and you couldn’t hear it at all. It was one of the many spaces in this building that turned out even better than we expected.”

Project Team :
University Center for the Arts
Fort Collins
$43 million, 165,200 sq ft
Owner: Colorado State University
Architect: SlaterPaull Architects, Performance Architecture
Engineers: Anderson & Hastings; Cator, Ruma & Associates; DL Adams Associates
General Contractor: GE Johnson Construction Co.
Among the Subcontractors: Ludvik Electric, CD1, GE Johnson Construction Co. (self-performed: doors, frames, hardware, concrete and carpentry work)
Start 2003 - Finish 2008

Project at a Glance: A Multi-Phased Masterpiece

Completion of the University Center for the Arts marks the first time in CSU history that music, theater, dance and art have been housed under one roof. The project had several phases:

• 1995—Fort Collins High School closes its doors. CSU purchases the building.
• 2003—Construction begins on the 550-seat Edna Rizley Griffen Concert Hall.
• 2004—Construction starts on the $4.7-million Bohemian Complex. The 37,000-sq-ft retrofit of the former high school includes the 318-seat University Theatre, 100-seat Studio Theatre and 2,400-sq-ft William Runyon Music Hall located in the high school’s old gymnasium. Another 4,500 sq ft provides space for production shops, dressing rooms, a green room, audio-visual equipment rooms and other support spaces.
• 2007—Renovation of the majority of the old Fort Collins High School. New spaces include the University Art Museum, Avenir Museum of Design and Merchandising, 285-seat Organ Recital Hall and 200-seat University Dance Theatre, designed and built specifically for dance performance—the only such venue in Northern Colorado.

Funding was largely secured through CSU’s student government. Associated Students for Colorado State University voted to increase student fees in spring 2005, which provided $29.6 million for the project. The remainder of the funding came from private donations, including the Bohemian Foundation, Griffin Foundation, Kenneth and Myra Monfort Foundation and the Serimus Foundation.