Construction on a new lakefront music building with classroom space for the School of Communication will begin in spring, University officials announced Friday.
Despite delays late last year, after the project was first announced in 2008, a construction plan has finally been announced to begin in May and last about three years.
The new five-story building, with a lakeside view of Chicago, will be located south of Pick-Staiger Concert Hall and connect to the Regenstein Hall of Music. Its price tag has been approximated as about $117 million, and includes a new 120-foot wide grass lawn called the Music and Arts Green to replace the parking lot next to Regenstein.
The approximately 150,000 gross square feet facility will also include added space for the School of Communication. A floor consisting completely of offices for the Department of Theatre and the Department of Performance Studies will join classrooms, teaching labs, faculty and administrative offices, practice rooms and teaching studios for musical endeavors including choral, jazz and piano. According to a university press release, an aim of the building's construction is to meld theater and music together in one space, allowing for more collaboration between the schools.
The building will feature a 400-seat recital hall with a wall of windows that, given floor plans and aerial images of the hall's placement in relation to the structure, look out onto Lake Michigan and the Chicago skyline.