Fundraising Leads to Two Dallas Groundbreakings

Construction commenced on the $275 million Dallas Center for the Performing Arts, marking a significant milestone in the nine-year campaign to raise funds to build the center. Meanwhile, community leaders and hospital officials celebrated the first step in the creation of the $106 million Children's Medical Center Legacy in Plano.

Dallas PAC Breaks Ground

Groundbreaking ceremonies recently took place for the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts at the future site of the $275 million center in the Dallas Arts District.

The ceremonies, sponsored by Alon USA, featured appearances by David Wiessman, president and CEO of Alon Israel, parent company of Alon USA; actor Tommy Lee Jones; Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison; Mayor Laura Miller; Mayor Pro Tem Donald Hill; Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Dr. Elba Garcia; and Dallas Center for the Performing Arts Foundation leadership.

The Dallas Center for the Performing Arts will complete the vision planned by the Dallas Arts District more than 25 years ago and will signal a new era for the cultural arts in the community. Once completed, the center will annually infuse $170 million into the Dallas economy and create up to 2,000 new jobs in Dallas' arts and hospitality industries.

To date, 73 gifts and documented pledges of $1 million or more, totaling more than $190 million, have been committed to the campaign.

"The campaign to build the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts is the largest project of its kind in the history of Dallas," said Bill Lively, president and CEO of the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts Foundation. "And the campaign goal of raising 93 percent of the project costs through private gifts may be the largest private sector commitment to a campaign of this kind in the history of American philanthropy."

When completed in 2009, the center will represent the highest quality in design, acoustics, technical and creative support and audience amenities.

The venues comprising the center are the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House, designed in a modern horseshoe configuration, that will seat 2,200; the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre, serving as a gateway to the Dallas Arts District from the downtown business center, which will seat 600; the redesigned Annette Strauss Artist Square, which will serve as the center's primary venue for outdoor events and performances; the Grand Plaza, which will connect the venues through an outdoor environment; the City Performance Hall, which will provide main-stage production space for the city's smaller performing arts organizations; and an underground parking structure accommodating more than 600 vehicles.

Construction will begin first on the parking garage. Good, Fulton & Farrell Architects of Dallas is the architect.

Following completion of the garage, construction of the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House and the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre will follow in the fall. London-based Foster and Partners is the design firm for the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House. Houston-based Linbeck is the construction manager for the opera house.

The Office for Metropolitan Architecture, with offices in Rotterdam, Netherlands and New York City, is the design firm for the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre. OMA founder Rem Koolhaas and partner-in-charge Joshua Prince-Ramus are leading the project. The Dallas office of McCarthy Building Cos. Inc. is the project's construction manager.

Design of the outdoor environment, including the Grand Plaza, will be lead by landscape architect of record, JJR of Chicago

The City Performance Hall is being designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill of Chicago and Corgan Associates of Dallas.

The architect for the renovation of the Annette Artist Square will be named later this year.

Children's Breaks Ground in Plano

Children's Medical Center recently broke ground on its second hospital with the goal of bringing world-class, academic pediatric care to children in the five-county area north of Dallas. The $106 million Children's Medical Center Legacy is projected to include 72 beds, an urgent/emergency care center, four operating rooms, full-service laboratory and comprehensive radiology services. The hospital is scheduled to open in early 2008 on a 68.7-acre site in Plano.

Children's Medical Center breaks ground on its new Plano facility, Children's Medical Center Legacy. Photo courtesy Children’s Medical Center.

Children's Medical Center Dallas and Children's Legacy, when opened, will be the only academic health-care facilities in North Texas dedicated exclusively to the comprehensive care of children from birth to age 18. Both hospitals are affiliated with The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

PageSoutherlandPage is the principal architect for the Legacy project working in partnership with Zimmer Gunsal Frasca Partnership of Portland, Ore. The firms have collaborated on past projects such as Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore and Children's Hospital Los Angeles.

A team of civic leaders has been assembled to engage the community in support of a $15 million fundraising campaign.