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FROM STAFF REPORTS

The University of Montevallo’s new Center for the Arts is completed, and began hosting classes with the start of the fall semester on Aug. 24.

The 36,750-square-foot building is located at the intersection of Oak Street and North Boundary Street, and is unique among collegiate facilities in the state of Alabama. It brings together many academic disciplines previously spread out across multiple buildings on the UM campus, and serves as a prime resource for the Montevallo community and Shelby County.

The Center serves students in the College of Fine Arts departments of art, communication, music and theatre and adds a dance program to the college.

It features two performance venues, an art gallery, a large social space, a concessions area, a digital fabrication lab, design labs with animation software, multiple classrooms, theatre faculty and college offices, vocal performance rehearsal rooms, a dance studio, state-of-the-art production shops, a public pocket park, a sculpture garden, an outdoor commons area and adjacent ground-level parking.

But the facility’s impact will stretch far beyond the College of Fine Arts, as it was designed to provide services to the University and community as a whole and will have a positive economic and cultural impact on the entire community. No large events will be held in the Center for the Arts or on the UM campus until the threat posed by COVID-19 has subsided.

“The Center is a one-of-a-kind, 21st century teaching and learning ‘collaboratory’ for the arts and communication. It is a hub for cross-disciplinary studies, and a prime resource for the campus, city of Montevallo and Shelby County,” said Dr. Steve Peters, dean of the UM College of Fine Arts. “With state-of-the-art instructional, production and performance venues, the newly completed Center is located just across the street from the UM quad and one block from Main Street, so it brings the arts literally to the center of the UM campus and the community.”