Albany State University quietly opens new fine arts center

ALBANY — One of Albany’s crown jewels quietly opened several weeks ago and, unless you are a student or a member of Albany State University’s Department of Arts and Humanities, you never knew that the university’s new $22 million Fine Arts Center was open for business.

Classes are being conducted in the facility, and administrators and faculty are ensconced in their news offices. Fine Arts Chairwoman Marcia Hood gave The Herald an exclusive walk-through of the center’s first floor on Friday. The building, which replaces Holley Hall, is impressive.

So why did the university keep the “soft opening” under wraps?

“I think the administration wants to make a big splash with the official opening,” Hood said. “Nothing has been finalized yet as far as a date goes, but I know homecoming weekend has been discussed. But nothing is official yet.”

Albany State will hold homecoming festivities the week of Oct. 8-14, with the homecoming football game against Morehouse College a highlight. That would likely be the time to cut the ribbon and show off the new facility to returning alumni and the community.

The first thing a visitor notices as he walks into the building is the airiness and bright openness of the lobby. The eye is drawn to the small Arthur Berry Gallery on the left side of the lobby. The entrance to the room is all glass and features artwork from ASU students.

Two students were sitting on a backless sofa just outside of the gallery’s entrance.

“This is a beautiful building,” said Albany freshman Bailey Dennard. “It’s comfortable and adds a whole new vibe to the entire campus.”

Tytana Day of Columbus agreed.

“I absolutely love this place, it’s big and well-organized,” she said. “And the way it looks is fantastic.”

There are five individual sound-proof practice rooms in a spacious hallway to the right of the entrance. The rooms are equipped with recording capabilities and have adjustable ambient sound settings that range from concert hall to cathedral.

“These practice rooms are the envy of any institution in the state,” ASU Instructor of Music Claire Fox Hillard said.

The building also features a “Black Box Theater” and a sound-controlled recital hall. By contrast, the old Holley Hall was a cacophony of different sounds. In the new building, students practiced drums, piano and trombone Friday without stepping on one another.

Associate Professor of Music Mimi Noda said the difference between the new facility and Holley Hall is wide and deep.

“What I am struck by is the space, and it’s very comfortable in here,” Noda said while sitting at the piano in her office. “We don’t have to worry about practice because we don’t hear the other students.”

Hood said another key difference in the two facilities is “that we don’t have to worry about the building falling down. Seriously, this building offers so much more than what we had before.”

In 1994, Holley Hall suffered 49 percent flood damage with more than 14 feet of water in the building. Had the damage been 50 percent, the building would have been immediately razed, but instead it remained in use for another 23 years

At the time, former Arts and Humanities Dean Leroy Bynum famously said, “Had I known we needed to reach 50 percent to get a new building, I would have pumped in two more inches of water myself.”

A new fine arts center had long been at the top of Albany State’s wish list, but the project was bogged down by state bureaucracy and controversy. In 2000, the state Board of Regents approved a $21 million construction budget, but the money was never allocated by the Legislature.

In 2010, the General Assembly allotted $1.8 million to design the building, but that was the last state money the school would see until 2015 when the Legislature finally approved funding for the new facility.