The Windgate Center for Fine and Performing Arts is set to open in January of 2023 and will hold new equipment, facilities and a state-of-the-art concert hall.

The building, originally scheduled to begin holding classes in the fall semester of 2022, will be used for visual arts, theater and music departments.

“I’m excited to hear the first musical notes to be played or sung in the hall,” Stephen Plate, professor and chair of the music department, said. 

The Department of Art and Design will move from its current home in Schichtl Hall, along with some classes from McAlister Hall, art chair and professor Bryan Massey said. The interior design major will not move with the rest of the department due to space issues.

“[The possibility for growth] was sort of plateaued in this building,” Massey said about the move from Schichtl Hall to the Windgate Center.

Massey said Schichtl Hall will go offline to be revamped, then the Center for Chinese Language and Culture and the Center for Global Learning and Engagement will move in.

Massey said he was excited for the space and the possibility for growth, as space was quite limited for his department in Schichtl. 

For the theater department, the space for performances can be reconfigured for different events, theater department chair and associate professor Shauna Meador said. There will also be a new sound system and an all-LED lighting system.

“It’s just really exciting to have this space … It will be a lot more intimate,” Meador said. The current stage is far away from the audience, but they can sit much closer in the Windgate Center.

Meador said their plans for first performances in the Windgate Center are “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” by Christopher Durang and “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” by Simon Stephens, based on the novel by Mark Haddon.

The Windgate Center is funded in part by the Windgate Foundation, according to the UCA website. The Windgate Foundation has helped fund similar projects at other colleges in Arkansas, like the University of Arkansas and Hendrix College.

The Department of Music will also benefit from the new building, located at Donaghey Avenue and Bruce Street. Currently housed in the Snow Fine Arts building, the music department will have new facilities in the Windgate Center, like practice rooms and a music library.

Plate said Snow Fine Arts will still be an important building for the music department. The building will be refurbished in December.

The Windgate Center will open opportunities for collaboration between the different areas of academic disciplines, according to the UCA website.

“I think the greatest thing is the opportunity to have collaborations with music and art,” Plate said. The visual arts and music departments will be a lot closer, with both departments having spaces in the Windgate Center, allowing possible collaboration. Plate said a string quartet playing in the art gallery could be one possibility.

Plate and Meador said there will be celebrations of the opening of the Windgate Center for 18 months.