UA developing art district

33,000-square-foot complex to be finished in phases

A new off-campus home for University of Arkansas at Fayetteville students' sculptural work will create what the university is calling an Art and Design District near a section of the city's trail system in south Fayetteville.

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Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

A map showing the location of UA Art and Design District.

Construction will likely begin in late February or early March on extensive renovations at a 2-acre site on Hill Street south of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, said Mike Johnson, UA's associate vice chancellor for facilities. Plans call for a former beer distributorship building to be transformed in two phases, eventually turning into a two-level, 33,000-foot workshop, classroom and studio area for UA's Department of Art.

"It's kind of a neat setup," said Jason Wright, a project manager for Fayetteville-based Modus Studio, which is designing the new complex along with Kansas City, Mo.-based El Dorado Inc. "It was a really run-down facility, and the university has taken it and they're going to transform it into a very lively center for art and design."

The UA System board of trustees approved what was estimated to be a $4.1 million project last year. With an infusion of money and project changes, Johnson estimated costs at $5.2 million.

The original plans were to renovate multiple buildings at the former Coors distributorship site. However, some of the buildings had structural problems like leaky roofs, Johnson said.

"We decided we need to demolish and replace those," Johnson said.

Now the project is focused on taking two adjoining structures and expanding them to accommodate workshop needs for sculpture students. The renovated building will feature 20-foot-high ceilings for much of the workshop areas, with the building's size increased in part by adding a mezzanine level to accommodate some classroom and studio space.

"We'll be able to build to the scale of large-scale public arts projects," said Jeannie Hulen, chairman of UA's art department.

The project's first phase will involve finishing out about 19,000 square feet of the larger structure, all to accommodate sculpture work, Hulen said. Later, plans call for more studio and classroom space to be added so the building can house freshman classes and graduate studios, she said.

The project, to be funded mostly with general obligation bonds, received a boost recently with grant money from the Windgate Charitable Foundation. The Siloam Springs-based foundation, which often funds arts-related programs, will provide $500,000 to help pay for construction and another $1.5 million for workshop equipment.

"The grant is going to allow us to go ahead and finish more of the building," Johnson said.

Competitive construction bids will be sought early next year, he said.

UA purchased the site in 2012 for approximately $550,000, Johnson said. It adjoins another university-owned, roughly 2-acre site that includes a design-build shop and design fabrication lab for UA's Fay Jones School of Architecture. That site was purchased in 2007 for about $400,000, Johnson said, and the architecture facilities opened in 2009, said Michelle Parks, spokesman for UA's architecture school.

Both sites are adjacent to part of the Fayetteville trail system called the Tsa-La-Gi Trail, which opened recently.

"It's a great location, with a lot of people passing," Johnson said.

For the UA art community, space has long been an issue, Hulen said.

Apart from adding some space to accommodate a ceramics program, the art department had not been allocated any new square footage from 1976 until about four years ago, Hulen said. Recently the art department was given temporary space in two buildings that weren't originally designed to house art programs, she said.

However, enrollment at UA overall has grown dramatically over the past several years, increasing by about 64 percent from 2002-14. UA now has 26,237 students enrolled, according to statistics for this fall.

Hulen said 446 students, including 15 graduate students, are majoring in art.

"In about 2009, when we had such a huge increase in enrollment across the board, we started to only accept art majors in our classes," Hulen said. The art department currently rents some space to accommodate art students, she said.

Johnson said the project has been in the works for about four years. Hulen said the site will have a "full-fledged" foundry and an expanded wood-shop area available to students, along with a wider array of metal fabrication tools.

She said she worked with the university to help select the site, noting that private art studios are nearby, including some used by UA art faculty members.

"It's perfect because there's already an art community in that area," Hulen said, adding that with the renovated building near the trail system, "we've got future opportunities to talk about public art on that site."

Metro on 12/22/2014

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