LCC Rose Center is blossoming
Saturday, March 24, 2007 11:41 PM PDT
By Tom Paulu
Printable version
E-mail this articleConstruction of Lower Columbia College's $24.6 million Rose Center for the Arts is on schedule for October completion.
And thanks to the largest private donation in the college's history, the 54,500-square-foot structure will have plenty of elegant touches when complete.
After the first construction bids came in $2 million too high, the college scaled back the project. A basement and orchestra pit were eliminated and the quality of inside finish materials was reduced.
But last fall, June Rose donated $1 million for the new arts center in honor of her late husband, Stanley Rose, a businessman who attended LCC.
The donation will be used for "the pretty stuff," said Nelson Graham, a former Longview assistant city manager who is LCC's project manager for the building.
The building will have cherry and cedar decor inside, thanks to the grant. The Rose donation will also provide equipment for arts programs, though exactly what it will be hasn't been decided, said college spokeswoman Janelle Runyon.
The Rose money wasn't enough to add back the basement -- but Graham said he recommended against it in any case because of the area's high ground water. A few blocks away, the Columbia Theatre has chronic problems with water seeping into its basement, he pointed out.
Construction on the LCC center started last August after the college's old Fine Arts building was demolished, along with the Masonic Temple and a McDonald's restaurant.
An average of 35 to 40 people are working on the project, said Rich Michaels, the project supervisor for Howard S. Wright, the general contractor. Construction will include 22 subcontractors.
One of the first jobs was to drive 420 rock support columns 12 feet down below floor level. The columns would provide support during an earthquake, Graham said. "When you get an earthquake, the soil turns into quicksand."
The shell of the main 525-seat auditorium has been built, mostly out of 12-inch concrete blocks. When finished, the building will have 19,000 such blocks and 200 tons on structural steel.
Two interior aisles will divide the seats; to get to their places, concertgoers won't have to squeeze by more than seven other people's knees. The theater will have side balconies as well.
To the south of the main hall, workers are pouring concrete for a smaller, 125-seat auditorium. The audience will sit on three sides of that "thrust" stage, which will be used for plays. The complex also will include a rehearsal hall for vocal and instrumental groups.
Where people once munched on McDonald's burgers, LCC students will have new classrooms.
The building also will hold a new visual arts gallery. Runyon said the college has been working with a donor for a naming opportunity for the gallery, though nothing has been finalized.
The front of the building faces the college's Main Building. "It's a big courtyard pavilion," Michaels said.
Much of the building's front will be glass, affording a view of the inside mural by Portland artist Lucinda Parker, an associate professor at the Pacific Northwest College of Art who has a national reputation.
The front faces inward -- towards the campus center -- rather than toward 15th Avenue because "first and foremost, the new building is an instructional facility," Runyon said.
For now, the college's inelegant Instructional Office Building sits between the Rose center and LCC's central quad. The college plans to remove the Instructional Office Building, but that could be six years off, Runyon said, depending on funding for a new health and sciences building.
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