The Windgate Center for Fine and Performing Arts opened its doors to the community Sept. 21, and UCA hosted a string of art events and performances to celebrate its long-awaited grand opening.

“Because of the Windgate Center for Fine and Performing Arts, UCA is already attracting a greater number of students and specialized studios that will produce artists and creators,” Provost Patricia Poulter said.

“Thus far, every visiting artist has simply marveled at not only the facilities but the ways our students are engaging in these spaces, bringing the arts alive in meaningful and transformational ways,” she said.

President Houston Davis said, “Our students and faculty for years have outperformed the fine arts facilities we’ve given them. I said when I first got here, our faculty and our students deserve better than that.”

After Director of Bands Michael Hancock conducted “Gateway Fanfare,” a piece specially commissioned for the grand opening, Davis broke a seal made by art department chair and sculptor Bryan Massey.

The grand opening kicked off an 18-month series of performances, exhibits and activities called “Ovation: Shaping the Arts in Arkansas.”

Davis said, “We found this to be a fitting theme, Ovation, as we recognize, celebrate and show enthusiastic appreciation for our incredibly talented students and faculty in the fine and performing arts.”

After the seal-breaking, attendees were shepherded through the lobby of the arts center and offered a tour of the concert hall.

Poulter said, “It’s a combination of an ending, on waiting for it to be done, and the beginning of so much possibility for the whole campus, but our students that study here, folks that come to events here … it’s an amazing beginning.”

Senior Anna Sharp, a Windgate Scholar since 2021, said in a speech she would have had to drop out without the Windgate Foundation’s scholarships, and was honored to represent them.

“The facilities are amazing. There are projects that I have fulfilled in the facilities that I would not have been able to do in the other building,” Sharp, a ceramics major, said.

The Windgate Foundation gave $20 million in 2017 to kickstart the project.

UCA Board of Trustees members broke ground for the center in an October 2020 ceremony, and the building was scheduled to open in fall 2022.

“We wound up moving students in the spring semester this past year, and we were in full operation at the start of the fall for this semester,” Bobby Gosser, president and CEO of Baldwin and Shell Construction Company, said.

Gosser said starting the project during “the brinks of COVID” was a challenge.

“I’ve mentioned material shortages, there was a rapid price increase … and there was labor shortages,” Gosser said.

Still, he said, “We completed this project within budget and without sacrificing any quality.”

Originally, Windgate was supposed to just be one building.

“We recognized real quick that we could save a lot of time and money if we divided it into two projects, and so that’s why it became two buildings,” he said.

He said it took 30,000 man-hours and 800 tons of steel to complete the structural steel erection process.

“The project had long hours. We worked a lot of six- and seven-day work weeks,” Gosser said.

He said workers removed and replaced 40,000 tons of dirt, drilled 265 concrete piers and laid 220,000 face bricks.

Davis said, “Bobby, y’all built a heck of a building for us.”

Stephen Plate, the music department chair, said the grand opening was “just a fabulous thing for music.”

“For me personally, it’s a culmination of four years of planning and dreaming and thinking and wishing and working and talking and designing and troubleshooting,” Plate said.

“For our students to have a world-class place to sing and play, to have a world-class recital hall, where we can perform and where we can learn our craft and have these beautiful acoustics … I think it’s fantastic. I love the dream. I can’t take credit for it,” he said.

“Mostly, I’m just thrilled for our faculty and students. The faculty, who have worked tirelessly for years and years and years in a building that really was substandard — no, just old — and then to be able to end up their illustrious careers in this beautiful place. It’s invigorating for them, and invigorating for the students,” he said.

The grand opening was filled with hours of performances and demonstrations from UCA students and faculty.

“It’s a natural outgrowth of what we do,” he said. “Our students, who spend a lot of time alone in a practice room, get to come here and play together.”

Matthew Taylor, saxophone professor and emcee, said he viewed the grand opening as “a commitment to the region.”

“The arts are a really critical part of being a human being and an important part of having a vibrant city around us,” he said.

Faulkner County Judge Allen Dodson said he saw the facility as a local win in the “war for talent.”

“Not everyone is going to be a tradesman. Not everyone’s going to be an attorney or an elected official, or an architect or an accountant,” he said.

“I didn’t realize this was the largest capital project in university history. That takes a lot of commitment,” he said.

The event culminated in a performance from Grammy award-winning group Third Coast Percussion as part of the university’s artist-in-residence program.