Casper College is ready to move forward on its next building project.

The College Board of Trustees said yes to a site plan this week.

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The new music building at Casper College will complete an arts district for the campus once its built.

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"It's gonna be about 30 thousand square feet. Its gonna be located  between the Kampert Theatre and the Goodstein Visual Arts Building. It will actually take up about half the space currently occupied by the two tier parking lot that's beneath the Krampert Theatre."

College Public Relations Director, Rich Fujita says building plans include an arts walk between the two theatres designed to create a contiguous and recognizable district.

The large lobby, Fujita says, will double as an artspace and will make before and after concert activities possible.

"The music building's gonna have at its center a 410 seat auditorium and a recital hall that's specifically designed for musical recital. We do have some lovely facilities on campus right now, none of which are designed exclusively for musical performances. We have an acoustical engineer working on the project to ensure that what we end up with is the absolute finest in acoustics for a collegiate music hall."

Fujita says much needed sound proofing means all rooms can be used at any time of the day.

"Right now in Aley Fine Arts we have to schedule it like a checkerboard. We can very seldom schedule adjacent rooms, because the sound transfer through the walls is such a problem."

And besides all that, Fujita says, the benefit that will come in freed-up space for other departments is huge.

The architectural design was done by Denver-based MOA and, music building design specialists, HMS out of New Orleans.

The building is expected to cost around 16 million including fixtures and fittings. The construction hard bid process begins sometime this fall.

The college has taken a lot of criticism for their design and construction firm choices.

Critics maintain that too many local tax dollars raised for college construction are going to out-of-state firms.

College officials stand by their choices and point to local firms involved in the construction process to date.

He says they expect to break ground in the spring of 2012 with completion by late 2013

 

 

 

 

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