The Robinson Center serves as a mausoleum of sorts, with its masonry shell holding the ghosts and memories of long-gone performers.
RELATED ARTICLE
http://www.arkansas…">Williams, Presley, Armstrong among Robinson's stars
Elvis Presley played the auditorium. Ella Fitzgerald and Ray Charles, too. Even Frank Zappa did his thing in the grand old building that anchors the northwestern corner of Little Rock's downtown.
ROBINSON CENTER: BY THE NUMBERS
Jan. 26, 1937: Little Rock voters approve $468,000 bond issue for an “auditorium-community building.”
1,518-519: for vs. against votes for bond issue
Dec. 30, 1937: Construction of the $760,000 auditorium begins.
Feb. 16, 1940: formal opening of the music hall of Joseph Taylor Robinson Memorial Auditorium with tickets $1, $1.50, $2 and $2.50
1,700: audience at the formal opening featuring an appearance by the San Francisco Opera Ballet accompanied by the Arkansas State Symphony Orchestra
15: number of minutes the formal opening was delayed because of the “tardy arrival” of reserved seat holders
1973: Building renovated and converted from a civic center to a convention center.
2007: Year building was added to National Register of Historic Places.
July 1, 2014: Robinson Center closed for historic “intermission.”
2,214: number of seats in renovated music hall, down from 2,609 seats
36: feet the stage was dropped in the renovated Robinson Center
— Shea Stewart
Sources: Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau;
Arkansas Gazette
After the music faded, the sounds -- both joyous and plaintive -- of these performances lingered in the still air of the historic Art Deco building. And the souls of these performers still bumped around in the upper reaches of the music hall, joining others who have graced the auditorium's stage since its 1939 completion.
Beyond the ghosts, there were faded memories of times past in the building, such as Mikhail Baryshnikov springing and gesturing on Robinson's stage in 1983 and 1985. Of Bruce Springsteen sweating and rocking before a nearly empty house in 1976.
In July 2014, though, those ghosts and memories had to vacate. In fact, everything had to go. Robinson Center was emptied for a long overdue renovation.
The insides of the 133,500-square-foot building, which included both concert hall and convention center, were hollowed out, leaving only the exterior of the historic structure.
"The whole first year of the project was major demolition," says Gretchen Hall, chief executive officer and president of the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau, the manager of the center.
"We put in extra steel to brace up the walls, but we literally went in and took it down to the bare bones. It was a skeleton."
David Porter, an architect and principal with Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects in Little Rock -- part of
a design team that included Ennead Architects of New York -- likened the demolition of Robinson to scooping out the flesh and core of an apple and having the skin remain intact.
"Sometimes you have to take a building like that and tear it apart ... and bring in the new and make something wonderful," said Porter during a speech before nearly 100 people at the Arkansas Arts Center last month.
After it officially closed July 1, 2014, contractors swarmed upon the structure. Cranes went up; walls came down. Dust floated and the rumble of machinery echoed throughout the empty chamber.
The $70.5 million project was a joint venture between CDI Contractors in Little Rock and Hunt Construction Group of Dallas. The renovation was funded by an existing 2 percent advertising and promotion tax that Little Rock voters dedicated to finance the bonds in December 2013.
Twenty-eight months later the job is done. A grand re-opening ceremony with ribbon cutting is set for 10 a.m. Thursday. Tours of the building will follow. The work has revolutionized the building.
The shell of the building remains -- with an added two-story conference center and outdoor terrace on the north side facing the Arkansas River -- but the inside of Robinson Center is almost unrecognizable.
The basement conference center is gone, with the performance hall stage dropped 36 feet and balcony boxes affixed to a more intimate hall. Adjustable acoustical drapes have been added to the hall, bringing a clearer, crisper sound.
The historic lobby has been restored, with the addition of a grand stairwell. There are more toilet fixtures, a permanent box office, new entrances, more concessions and so on for patrons.
In the back of the center, there are new loading docks, new mechanical systems and bigger, better dressing rooms for performers, including four large chorus rooms, four private dressing rooms and a performer's lounge.
The glass and steel conference center addition means the center and the next door DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Little Rock possess 40,000 square feet of meeting space combined, including a new Grand Ballroom with a view of the Arkansas River.
"The inside of this wonderful 1939 Art Deco building has been totally transformed," Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola says. "It's not only a great rejuvenation of the building, but it continues to show the rejuvenation of our downtown. I'm a firm believer that when you have a strong, healthy downtown, the rest of the city thrives as well."
A NEW TUNE INSIDE
Beyond an overhaul in the early 1970s and small work here and there, Robinson Center hadn't been renovated since its completion in December 1939.
The time had arrived. Inadequate loading docks, dressing room space, equipment and technical capabilities in the back of the hall meant that larger Broadway touring productions bypassed Little Rock.
Hall has joked that the building's heating and air were held together with "super glue and duct tape" in places.
The building needed some love, she says.
The renovation has been just that, according to Ed Payton, CEO of Celebrity Attractions, the Tulsa-based company that handles ticketed events at Robinson except those of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra.
"There isn't a single show that is on Broadway today that we couldn't bring technically and present it at the Robinson Center," he says. "This is going to be a world-class facility in every way.
"There's not a bad seat in the house. It's very intimate. The architects and designers have done an incredible job of bringing the patrons closer to the stage and making it a much more intimate experience."
Philip Mann, music director of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, whose performance home is the center, says the orchestra was included in the renovation process from the very beginning.
He has also kept a close watch on the structure's progress.
"The first impression is ... it really gives a sense of a completely new hall on the inside," Mann says. "Any perceptions of what a quote -- renovation -- unquote would be will really be quickly dispelled. You walk up the steps and enjoy that wonderful historic lobby area, but from that point forward, you are really in a new space."
Architects and designers worked with Schuler Shook, a global theater planner and lighting design firm, on the acoustical aspects of the building, including the dropping of the stage to provide more acoustic volume.
Now, Mann is ready to see how the hall "plays." The orchestra returns to Robinson on Nov. 19 and 20 with a program featuring Mozart's Haffner Symphony and Ottorino Respighi's Pines of Rome.
"The most important thing for me is that a hall is the orchestra's instrument," Mann says. "Any great musician needs a good instrument. For us, the hall really is the instrument that we play and it fills a really specific function for us."
Soon, people from all over will see and hear how this "new instrument" plays. The time is near. After 28 months and $70.5 million, the work is completed.
Who knows? Maybe the ghosts will return, too, and likewise be blown away by the new Robinson Center.
"You don't really understand the magnitude of the project until you can walk into the new performance hall and say, 'Oh, my gosh. This is totally different,'" Hall says.
"The future of the building is pretty exciting."
Style on 11/06/2016