Skip to content
ADVERTISEMENT
Sign In
  • Sections
    • News
    • Advice
    • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Student Success
    • Technology
    • Transitions
    • The Workplace
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Special Issues
    • Podcast: College Matters from The Chronicle
  • Newsletters
  • Events
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle On-The-Road
    • Professional Development
  • Ask Chron
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Professional Development
    • Career Resources
    • Virtual Career Fair
  • More
  • Sections
    • News
    • Advice
    • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Student Success
    • Technology
    • Transitions
    • The Workplace
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Special Issues
    • Podcast: College Matters from The Chronicle
  • Newsletters
  • Events
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle On-The-Road
    • Professional Development
  • Ask Chron
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Professional Development
    • Career Resources
    • Virtual Career Fair
    Upcoming Events:
    College Advising
    Serving Higher Ed
    Chronicle Festival 2025
Sign In
Buildings

Much Ado About Costly Arts Centers

Even in an era of cutbacks, some colleges see big performance halls as the new necessities

By Lawrence Biemiller March 13, 2011
The Hylton Performing Arts Center, on the Manassas, Va., branch campus of George Mason U., opened last fall at a cost of $46-million.  Modeled on 19th-century European opera houses, its 1,121-seat theater includes a copper ceiling and three levels of box seats.
The Hylton Performing Arts Center, on the Manassas, Va., branch campus of George Mason U., opened last fall at a cost of $46-million. Modeled on 19th-century European opera houses, its 1,121-seat theater includes a copper ceiling and three levels of box seats.Robert Benson
Northridge, Calif.

It’s an irony Shakespeare could write a play around: Officials of California State University at Northridge spent 10 years planning a $125-million performing-arts center and figuring out how to pay for it—securing more than $60-million in capital-projects money from the state and raising millions more from gifts and grants. They pleaded with donors and local politicians to make up shortfalls and promised anxious students that none of the money would come from their pockets. It wouldn’t be a surprise to hear that the project’s biggest backer, President Jolene M. Koester, had checked between the sofa cushions in her office for loose change.

To continue reading for FREE, please sign in.

Sign In

Or subscribe now to read with unlimited access for as low as $10/month.

Don’t have an account? Sign up now.

A free account provides you access to a limited number of free articles each month, plus newsletters, job postings, salary data, and exclusive store discounts.

Sign Up

It’s an irony Shakespeare could write a play around: Officials of California State University at Northridge spent 10 years planning a $125-million performing-arts center and figuring out how to pay for it—securing more than $60-million in capital-projects money from the state and raising millions more from gifts and grants. They pleaded with donors and local politicians to make up shortfalls and promised anxious students that none of the money would come from their pockets. It wouldn’t be a surprise to hear that the project’s biggest backer, President Jolene M. Koester, had checked between the sofa cushions in her office for loose change.

Finally Northridge scheduled the opening gala for late January, only to have it take place just two weeks after Gov. Jerry Brown proposed slashing $1.4-billion from state support for higher education. This month Joan Rivers, Kiri Te Kanawa, Ed Asner, and Roseanne Cash are performing in the 1,700-seat main hall, and a student production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is running in the black-box theater—while across the campus, students stage protests against fee increases and program cuts that the university says will be necessary because of the state’s revenue shortfall.

The Valley Performing Arts Center here isn’t the only one to make its debut amid recessionary fallout. Multimillion-dollar venues, many of them financed largely by state money, are opening or planned at colleges across the country. Even though ticket sales and donations cover much of the operating cost, the centers prompt critics to talk about “edifice complexes” and “conspicuous consumption.”

The number of new facilities, at least, is conspicuous. In February, James Madison University opened its five-venue, $82-million Forbes Center for the Performing Arts. Smaller facilities have opened within the past year or so at George Mason University’s branch campus in Manassas, Va. ($46-million), Sam Houston State University ($38.5-million), and on Montgomery College’s campus in Silver Spring, Md. ($31-million).

All of those were planned before the recession started. But even with the economy sputtering and gloom pervading legislative budget committees, new arts venues are in the works at institutions as diverse as Hagerstown Community College, in Maryland; the University of Texas’s Permian Basin campus; and the State University of New York at Potsdam. With colleges everywhere raising tuition and cutting programs, such projects have some people questioning administrative priorities.

“In the order of sins, performing-arts centers are probably a tad better than rec centers, student-union buildings, and indoor-practice facilities,” says Richard Vedder, a professor of economics at Ohio University who is director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity. “They present events that have some tie to artistic expression, and that’s part of what universities do.”

But when you start adding up personnel costs, heating and air conditioning, and depreciation, he says, “the real problem is, we simply can’t afford this stuff.” Even though arts venues may not “be socking it to kids directly, there are no free lunches.”

A Glut of Theaters?

Some of the arts projects have been particularly controversial on their own campuses. Faculty members at Sonoma State University, which is also in the Cal State system, spent years heckling President Ruben Armiñana’s plan to build a performing-arts center, which ended up costing $120-million by the time it opened, in October. Although the money didn’t come from the university’s operating budget, some faculty members complained that the institution had been so focused on raising big sums for the arts venue that it neglected other needs. But other professors say the facility could help raise Sonoma State’s profile and improve relations with local residents.

The glamour of performing-arts centers—the bright lights, the galas, the divas—may be hard for presidents and boards to resist, especially as more and more of the facilities open on campuses that aren’t system flagships. David B. Greenbaum, a vice president of the architecture firm SmithGroup who oversees its cultural-facilities practice, says that while economic conditions have delayed some projects—"anything that’s got state funding"—he sees a number of new facilities coming in the years ahead.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to think that a performing-arts center is going to be something you have to have,” Mr. Greenbaum says. “Maybe it’s going from a luxury to a necessity.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Arts venues are still a long way from matching climbing walls in terms of attracting students. But colleges that have built performing-arts facilities say their public offerings—underwritten by a mix of ticket revenue and donor gifts—are important paybacks to the taxpayers and communities that support the institutions and that might otherwise never see a Broadway star or a ballet besides The Nutcracker.

Still, some arts professionals wonder whether campus performing-arts centers are contributing to what the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Rocco Landesman, said last month is a glut of theaters in general. Mr. Landesman, a Broadway producer, was responding to a question about declining attendance figures for performances. “Look, you can either increase demand or decrease supply,” he said. “Demand is not going to increase. So it is time to think about decreasing supply.”

But W. Robert Bucker, executive director of the complex here in Northridge, says that the San Fernando Valley has “a pent-up desire to see high culture and a tremendous interest in pop culture,” and that the Valley Performing Arts Center will offer both. One of the big attractions of the new facility, he says, is its location in a populous area from which driving to older venues—in downtown Los Angeles, in Pasadena, in Santa Monica—can be a nightmare.

“The mission of this university is to be an accessible institution,” he argues. Here, unlike downtown, performance prices are scaled “so there are always tickets in the $15-to-$25 range,” with 20-percent discounts for faculty and staff members and 40-percent discounts for students.

ADVERTISEMENT

And unlike many professional theaters, which have fairly narrow ranges of offerings, the Valley Performing Art Center’s spring events include the China Philharmonic Orchestra, a popular brass quintet from Mexico called Metales M5, and, at the end of May, a double bill featuring the Evita stars Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin that’s been sold out for weeks.

Such a wide-ranging calendar also helps limit the university’s financial risk—if audiences here don’t flock to modern-dance events, for instance, Ed Asner’s one-man show about FDR or the brass quintet’s performance may take up the slack. Just in case, though, the university has set aside $500,000 as a “safety net” for the center’s operations.

In Silver Spring, Md., the biggest benefit of the new facility on Montgomery College’s branch campus is that it “brings a whole group of people to Montgomery College who might not otherwise come—it’s a huge front door with a wonderful welcome mat,” says Brad J. Stewart, who oversees the campus as vice president and provost.

In addition to student productions and college events, the facility has housed dance performances, entertainers like the Flying Karamazov Brothers, and big corporate functions. The revenue stream from company rentals and traveling shows not only helps the college’s balance sheet but also means that local nonprofit groups, like the Maryland Youth Ballet, can use the facility free or at a discount, Mr. Stewart says. “To see the building full of young dancers—wow, that’s is what we built this for. To have young people learning, to have their parents here, too.”

We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
Share
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Email
About the Author
Lawrence Biemiller
Lawrence Biemiller was a senior writer who began working at The Chronicle of Higher Education in 1980. He wrote about campus architecture, the arts, and small colleges, among many other topics.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

More News

WASHINGTON, DISTICT OF COLUMBIA, UNITED STATES - 2025/04/14: A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator holding a sign with Release Mahmud Khalil written on it, stands in front of the ICE building while joining in a protest. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators rally in front of the ICE building, demanding freedom for Mahmoud Khalil and all those targeted for speaking out against genocide in Palestine. Protesters demand an end to U.S. complicity and solidarity with the resistance in Gaza. (Photo by Probal Rashid/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Campus Activism
An Anonymous Group’s List of Purported Critics of Israel Helped Steer a U.S. Crackdown on Student Activists
ManganGMU-0708 B.jpg
Leadership
The Trump Administration Appears to Have Another College President in Its Crosshairs
Joan Wong for The Chronicle
Productivity Measures
A 4/4 Teaching Load Becomes Law at Most of Wisconsin’s Public Universities
Illustration showing a letter from the South Carolina Secretary of State over a photo of the Bob Jones University campus.
Missing Files
Apparent Paperwork Error Threatened Bob Jones U.'s Legal Standing in South Carolina

From The Review

John T. Scopes as he stood before the judges stand and was sentenced, July 2025.
The Review | Essay
100 Years Ago, the Scopes Monkey Trial Discovered Academic Freedom
By John K. Wilson
Vector illustration of a suited man with a pair of scissors for a tie and an American flag button on his lapel.
The Review | Opinion
A Damaging Endowment Tax Crosses the Finish Line
By Phillip Levine
University of Virginia President Jim Ryan keeps his emotions in check during a news conference, Monday, Nov. 14, 2022 in Charlottesville. Va. Authorities say three people have been killed and two others were wounded in a shooting at the University of Virginia and a student is in custody. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
The Review | Opinion
Jim Ryan’s Resignation Is a Warning
By Robert Zaretsky

Upcoming Events

07-31-Turbulent-Workday_assets v2_Plain.png
Keeping Your Institution Moving Forward in Turbulent Times
Ascendium_Housing_Plain.png
What It Really Takes to Serve Students’ Basic Needs: Housing
Lead With Insight
  • Explore Content
    • Latest News
    • Newsletters
    • Letters
    • Free Reports and Guides
    • Professional Development
    • Events
    • Chronicle Store
    • Chronicle Intelligence
    • Jobs in Higher Education
    • Post a Job
  • Know The Chronicle
    • About Us
    • Vision, Mission, Values
    • DEI at The Chronicle
    • Write for Us
    • Work at The Chronicle
    • Our Reporting Process
    • Advertise With Us
    • Brand Studio
    • Accessibility Statement
  • Account and Access
    • Manage Your Account
    • Manage Newsletters
    • Individual Subscriptions
    • Group and Institutional Access
    • Subscription & Account FAQ
  • Get Support
    • Contact Us
    • Reprints & Permissions
    • User Agreement
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • California Privacy Policy
    • Do Not Sell My Personal Information
1255 23rd Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037
© 2025 The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education is academe’s most trusted resource for independent journalism, career development, and forward-looking intelligence. Our readers lead, teach, learn, and innovate with insights from The Chronicle.
Follow Us
  • twitter
  • instagram
  • youtube
  • facebook
  • linkedin