By Lindsey Coulter 

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Earlier this month, the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, celebrated a milestone in the construction of the new Smith Family Center for Performing Arts. University representatives and members of the project team gathered for the project’s topping out ceremony as the final vertical beam was added to the building’s structure. Serving as the new home for the university’s Department of Theatre and Dance, the project is expected to be completed by November 2026 after breaking ground in 2023.

When complete, the 130,088-square-foot Smith Family Center for Performing Arts will provide a performance venue for the Department of Theatre and Dance, consolidating all of the department’s performances and academic functions into a single area of campus. The building will hold a 350-seat drama theater, a 450-seat dance theater and a 250-seat studio theater. These performance spaces will allow for an intimate artist-to-audience connections. Meanwhile, costume, scenery, production and lighting studios sized and equipped to match commercial studios will ensure that design and technical students experience a seamless transition into the professional world. Adjustable acoustics in the drama theatres and precisely engineered floors for dance will allow faculty to train students in facilities equivalent to the ones in which they will be working as professionals. Faculty offices and classrooms for the department will be relocated to the Peter Bryce Main building, which will be connected to the Smith Family Center by its new lobby.

HPM is providing program and project management for construction of the center, working to oversee budget control, scheduling and project management through every phase of construction from planning to closeout. TurnerBatson Architects is serving as the architect on the project, while M.J. Harris Construction Services LLC is serving as the general contractor.

“The Smith Family Center for Performing Arts will be a centerpiece for creativity and learning on campus, and reaching the topping out is a testament to our teams’ expertise and dedication to getting the job done on time,” said Austin Fisher, senior project manager at HPM, in a statement. We look forward to bringing the vision for this facility to life and delivering a space that will inspire generations of students, faculty members and audiences.”

The Performing Arts Academic Center is intended to be a marquee public space for the campus community as well as visitors, bringing student artists, faculty mentors, arts lovers, community members and visitors together to explore the arts in a one-of-a-kind facility.

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The $24 million school is slated for a 2020 launch in Northport, a city in Tuscaloosa County in the west central part of Alabama. They know who it will teach (fifth and sixth graders), but they have yet to figure out where it will teach them.

In mid-December 2017, TCBE approved local firm Ward Scott Architecture to design the school with also local Hall-Taylor Construction acting as the construction manager. Despite the lack of a location, the Tuscaloosa County School System (TCSS) is optimistic that approving an architect bodes well for the project.

“This is just our first step toward moving forward,” TCSS Superintendent Walter Davie told , a local journalism outpost. “It’s a major part to it.”

Ward Scott Architecture is no stranger to local building projects. The firm is presently seeing its design for another TCSS project, Holt High School, through construction with completion targeted sometime in 2018. The new project will serve about 700 students and has raised some eyebrows in the community for serving only the two uppermost grades of typical elementary schools rather than being a traditional middle school. Others were concerned that the size of the student body is too large.

TCSS addresses these concerns on its and points to the “feeder pattern” of the district in terms of where student needs cluster:

“The overriding concerns are the schools in the entire feeder pattern that are already at capacity and the growth projections for the area. Plans must address, to the best degree possible, ways to create space in several schools in the feeder pattern as well as provide for programmatic opportunities. In addition to the Northport area, there are a multitude of needs across the entire school system that cannot be met with current funding. This area has a priority due to higher than average growth.”

That growth is the benchmark with which the newly appointed architecture firm will begin their creative process.

Hall-Taylor Construction Company is a leading general contractor in Alabama with copious educational construction experience in the area. The company’s projects include Tuscaloosa and Hillcrest High Schools as well as elements of the University of Alabama.

Jim Ward, architect with Ward Scott Architecture, believes partnering with the construction company will make for an on-time and on-budget outcome, particular since the project has the benefit of added time given the prospective deadline. “Normally, every project is in a hurry, but we’re talking about opening the school for the fall session in 2020, so we have more time than it takes to design and build,” he said to the Tuscaloosa News.

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According to a report by the , a new middle school facility, intended to bridge the student experience between a nearby elementary school and high school, has benefited from the diligence and sacrifice of its construction crew.  

In December 2016, the Tuscaloosa City Board of Education approved a bid from Dominion Construction Inc. (also of Tuscaloosa) for a $2.5 million site plan for the new school. Construction on the new school began last spring with an initial budget of about $34 million, but, according to Executive Director of Facilities for Tuscaloosa City Schools Jeff Johnson, aspects of the construction have come in under budget. In total, the school system will likely only spend about $29.6 million.

For the past several months, construction crews have labored on the new school, which will accommodate about 900 students in 36 core classrooms, covering about 134,000 square feet. Despite some setbacks due to inclement weather, the construction schedule was only minorly affected and construction crews compensated by working weekends.

Over the coming months,  crews will add the building’s second floor, install steel columns and lay the foundations for classrooms in the building’s interior. So far, however, the most evident aspect of the structure are the walls for the school’s gym. â€śThe gymnasium is probably the biggest thing you will see right now,” Johnson told the Tuscaloosa News.

As part of the Tuscaloosa City Board of Education’s recently adopted five-year strategic plan, the educational facility will be located in Tuscaloosa at the intersection of Northridge Road and Arbor Ridge Road, near the existing Northridge High School and Verner Elementary.

An opportunity to celebrate this milestone will commence with a groundbreaking ceremony hosted by Tuscaloosa City Schools at the site on Sept. 27. The school is slated to open fall 2018.

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