Generous Donor Boosts City Auditorium Renovation Project

A generous donation of $3 million has given the San Angelo Performing Arts Coalition (SAPAC) and the San Angelo Area Foundation (SAAF) a much needed boost that will permit the entities to move forward with both phases of renovation and restoration on the City Auditorium.

The project has been discussed and planned for a couple of years now and was broken down into two parts: the renovation and restoration of the existing auditorium; and construction of a back-of-house annex that will provide access for big-name touring acts interested in taking the stage in San Angelo.

Previous fundraising efforts, grant monies, half-cent sales tax revenues and donations sufficed only to cover the costs of the project’s first phase, however city council approved a generous donation from arts parton Elta Joyce Murhpey McAffee on Tuesday that will secure the project’s future and afford McAffee naming rights on the building.

“Whenever the project to rehabilitate and restore the city auditorium…came to fruition as far as a dream was concerned several years ago, Elta Joyce was up front being supportive and had made a nice donation,” San Angelo Area Foundation President Matt Lewis said. “As the fundraising has continued, through multiple conversations with the committee members and Elta Joyce, she saw the opportunity to step up and increase her gift up to the $3 million number to get us to the point that the organization needed to be to move forward with the project.”

McAffee has been a long-time supporter of the arts in San Angelo, Lewis said.  “When she graduated high school, that’s where they held the commencement exercises, walking across that stage (in the city auditorium). She performed in a ballet there, took her grandchildren to ballet there, attended some of the first symphony performances in the city auditorium, and over the past 60+ years has been an ardent supporter and involved in all of the arts—ballet, symphony, theatre—in San Angelo.”

The improvements will provide outstanding facilities for local performance groups, including the San Angelo Symphony, the Civic Ballet, and others. It also allows San Angelo to attract traveling Broadway-styled shows and other entertainment, which it could not do in the auditorium’s existing configuration, A SAPAC press release states.

City council last month authorized hiring Killis Almond and Associates to begin final architectural design documents on the estimated $7-8 million project, the release continues. Bidding and construction on the project may begin as early as next spring, with opening targeted for late 2016.

Upon completion of the project, the old city auditorium will be dedicated the Elta Joyce Murphey Performance Hall and Stage at San Angelo City Auditorium. The term of the agreement for the naming rights requires the building remain so named until 50 years after McAffee has passed away or until the structure once again requires substantial renovation and repair to operate. The name will stay in place for the longer of those two terms. 

Upon opening, the newly refurbished Elta Joyce Murphey Performance Hall and Stage at San Angelo City Auditorium will join another construction project next door—the San Angelo Performing Arts Center located at the former Coca-Cola warehouse—to create an impressive performing arts campus and dramatically move forward revitalization of San Angelo’s downtown area.

Currently, the project in is the design and construction document phase, Lewis said, who estimated that the construction budget numbers will be received from the architect and construction firm in the first quarter of 2015.

At the present, both phases are fully funded, Lewis explained, however cost projections were done roughly three years ago, “before the oil boom really hit”, which has affected cost of labor for construction projects regionally. A “cushion” was planned in to the cost analysis, Lewis said. He just hopes it won’t be fully absorbed.

“We hope we’re going to be able to move forward immediately even though there may be some minor fundraisers to be done at the end,” he said.