Renovated Walton Arts Center opens in Fayetteville

FAYETTEVILLE -- Sniffly children clutching safety scissors in shaky hands cut the ribbon Saturday to open the expanded Walton Arts Center.

Mohammad Almaskeen walked through the new lobby with his family and friends after the opening fanfare.

"It looks like what you'd see in New York or Chicago," he said. "That's great for the city of Fayetteville."

Gov. Asa Hutchinson said the center puts Northwest Arkansas on the map as a hub for promoting the arts.

"As governor, I recognize that this is something that's important to our quality of life. The arts add something every day to a new perspective, to enhancing your creative talent in your community, to expression, to creativity," he said. "Without the arts, there is a void in our community life, there is a void in the state."

Walton Arts Center President and CEO Peter Lane said the renovation will allow the center to serve more people with more shows and events. He asked people in the crowd to raise their hands if they voted yes on the campaign to expand the center, or if they have ever bought a ticket, attended an education program, or volunteered or worked at or otherwise helped build the center.

Just about everyone raised a hand.

"For 25 years the Walton Arts Center has served our community, and today the curtain rises as we celebrate our grand reopening," he said.

The changes mean productions that have become larger and more elaborate will have more room to operate and can easier meet the expectations of audiences, Lane said.

The center will anchor a five-venue performing arts "campus" in Fayetteville that Mayor Lioneld Jordan expects to boost the economy for the city as well as the Dickson Street entertainment district.

The $23 million expansion had a rocky start in 2010 when the Walton Family Foundation said it would only support a larger theater in Bentonville and the center's board asked for changes in its makeup to allow a more regional approach.

Eyes still look north. Lane said he sees a need for a performing arts venue in Bentonville one day, but the foundation ended up donating $5 million to the expansion, the largest private donation.

The expansion shows the effect of a partnership-based government, Jordan told the crowd.

"Today we're very proud to support the arts in Fayetteville and help bring the type of programming here that attracts talent to the area, has such a positive impact on quality of life and introduces the arts and creativity to support a well-rounded cultural experience," he said.

People got out of the 30-degree weather and went in to see what the center has to offer.

Eric Kerr, his wife, Adrianne, and their sons, Landen, 9, and Nolan, 7, visited from Rogers where they have lived for about a year. They moved to the area from Maryland.

Nolan said he's excited about seeing Broadway hits. The family saw Beauty and the Beast at the center in May. Landen likes to get his hands dirty using paints and sculpting.

The family looks forward to having something for everyone with the expansion now completed.

"I think that's why we like it, because we like to go not to just movie theaters but plays and concerts," Adrianne Kerr said. "They have so many events here."

Doubling Up

The expansion pushed the center's footprint from 55,000 to about 64,000 square feet. Construction took 16 months in three phases.

The atrium lobby features a 30-foot ceiling and a chandelier representing contributors. A wall-sized window with movable panels overlooking downtown can be shuttered or opened. The center also features a new garden room, extra catering kitchen and power connections up front for outside events on Tyson Plaza at West Avenue and Dickson Street.

The wiring, sound and lighting all were upgraded.

One of the biggest perks for Lane: The center now can have events simultaneously at the main Baum Walker Hall and the smaller, blackbox Starr Theater.

The Starr Theater has transformed, Lane said. It boasts an automated, retractable seating system for 260 people, which allows for quick changes between events. The theater also gained its own dressing and green rooms and production area, which makes it possible to run events at the two theaters at the same time, Lane said.

"It won't be a storage closet for the 100 days a year when we have a Broadway or a large dance company or something of that nature," he said. "It gives us tremendous flexibility."

The center was operating at 94 percent capacity, Lane said, with nearly 300,000 people a year walking through its doors. Acts such as Cats, which have gone from two trucks in the 1990s to about 10 with huge crews, will have more room to operate and more tools at their disposal, he said.

Artistic Spaces

The center will sit just a block from a new, 50,000-square-foot TheatreSquared building, set to open in 2019, at the corner of West Avenue and Spring Street.

Nadine Baum Studios, where TheatreSquared operates, sits just across West Avenue. It also houses the Community Creative Center, an educational and arts program for children and adults. Officials haven't made any decisions on future use of the theater space in that building, Walton Arts Center spokeswoman Erin Rogers said.

Those three venues, along with the University of Arkansas' Faulkner Performing Arts Center, which opened last year, and the fairly new Fayetteville High School Performing Arts Center will be in close proximity, Jordan said.

"We are on the cutting edge of performing arts in this city," he said. "It's going to create an arts campus, if you will, where it's just everybody can go to different things right there in the heart of our city. I think it's going to be a real economic generator for us."

Chancellor Joseph Steinmetz, who took his role at the university in January, said Fayetteville routinely receives recognition as one of the best places to live in the nation, and its commitment to visual and performing arts is a big reason.

"People like to go out and have a nice meal downtown, but they also need to feed their eyes and ears through the arts," he said. "To me, the relative wealth of a community is not solely determined by its tax base but by its commitment to a rich, cultural life. Around here, the Walton Arts Center is indispensable to making that commitment."

The economic growth of Dickson Street and the center have gone hand-in-hand, Jordan said. The center's expansion will bring about another stage of vibrancy to downtown, he said.

Cory Tran, owner of Kraken Killer Seafood on Dickson Street and Kream ice cream shop on West Avenue, said he hopes the opening will keep business flowing after football season ends.

Kraken opened in February and caught some of the Walton Arts Center crowd because shows and events went on despite construction. Kream opened in September.

Tran imagined people going to his restaurant before a show and getting some ice cream at his shop afterward.

"That's the whole point," he said.

Leaving the Gym

The Walton Arts Center opened in 1992 as a joint effort between the university and the city. The city took its first step in 1977 when voters approved a hotel, motel and restaurant tax to pay for the university's Center for Continuing Education. Leftover revenue went toward construction of the arts center, according to Northwest Arkansas-Democrat Gazette archives.

Officials added a portion of the 1 percent sales tax in 1981, and, that same year, Sam and Helen Walton donated $5 million to the university to build an arts center.

The city and university pegged Dickson Street as the most suitable location.

Billie Jo Starr, whose family and foundation donated $500,000 to the expansion, served as executive director of the North Arkansas Symphony in the early 1980s. For decades the symphony played at an old gym and bounced around churches and other venues to practice. The city has come a long way from having a makeshift stage at a gym double as its performing arts venue, Starr said.

The arts center marked a cornerstone for what soon became a thriving entertainment district, she said.

"It was the best we could do at the time," Starr said. "There were some very loyal people on the board of the symphony. It was a culmination of a lot of people sticking to their guns saying, 'Let's find a place.'"

The $23 million expansion became possible through a combination of private and public donations and the city contributing $7 million.

Fayetteville voters in 2013 approved issuing $1.5 million in bonds to pay off the remaining Town Center debt, $3.5 million to put toward Kessler Mountain Regional Park and $7 million toward the Walton Arts Center expansion.

The $23.8 million the center has raised to date is made up of 211 donations, according to its numbers. The Luminary Society, a class of contributors who gave at least $200,000, has 21 members. More than 50 major donors contributed $10,000 to $199,000. The rest came from small donations or people who contributed enough to get their names on chairs and bricks.

The center raises about 30 percent of its budget and the other 70 percent earned, compared to about a 50-50 split in 2009, Lane said. Its operating budget rose from $8 million in 2009 to $21 million this year. Ticket prices will not increase as a result of the expansion, Rogers said. Market demand and artist fees set the prices.

Needs Up North

The possibility of a performing arts venue in Bentonville looms.

"We do believe, as far as Bentonville, that there is a need," Lane said. "All of our studies absolutely lead to the fact that we believe a 2,000-seat theater and another education center, at some point in the future, is in the cards. But it's not in the short term."

The Walton Family Foundation in 2010 sent a letter to the center stating its desire to see the expansion take place in Bentonville.

"We do not foresee being the lead donor for a new performing arts facility in a location other than Bentonville," then-Executive Director Buddy Philpot said at the time.

The center's governance structure officially changed in 2014 when the City Council approved changes to the Walton Arts Center Council. The center's 20-member governing body was no longer considered an "agent" of the city. The city and university each retained five representatives on the nonprofit group's council with the rest appointed by the Walton Family Foundation.

The change signified the original intent to be a regional entity, Lane said. The board also controls the Walmart Arkansas Music Pavilion, which moved from Fayetteville to Rogers in 2014.

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art announced in March plans to bring a mixed-use contemporary visual and performing arts space to the old Kraft plant in downtown Bentonville, not far from the museum. Steuart and Tom Walton, grandsons of Sam Walton, have spearheaded the project.

Plans for the venue are in development, Crystal Bridges spokeswoman Beth Bobbitt said. The space likely will feature a mix of visual arts, performances and culinary events, she said.

Crystal Bridges will work with partners such as the Walton Arts Center to have smaller events at the new space that will complement what's happening in the Northwest Arkansas art scene, Bobbitt said.

"We don't see it being the same kind of performances or the same-sized venue, for that matter," she said.

Bentonville also has a 15,761-square-foot movie theater in development for its downtown. The Northwest Arkansas Downtown Revitalization Fund, financed by members of the Walton family, is building the theater. It's expected to open in the spring.

No official plans have been released on a possible upscale performing arts center in downtown Bentonville.

"I don't know when Bentonville is going to build a performing arts center, but right now I know this much: I've got one right down here," Jordan said. "And it's going to be a good one."

NW News on 11/20/2016