Could a 2-theater ‘Nittany Performing Arts Centre’ one day be in downtown State College?
If retired conductor Doug Meyer has his way, a gleaming five-story performing arts center — complete with a rooftop terrace, retail spaces and two theaters — could one day greet visitors in downtown State College in an effort to further revitalize the arts.
The “Nittany Performing Arts Centre” remains in its early stages, something that began as an idea in 2016 before slowly progressing into something more. Meyer formed a nonprofit organization focused on the performing arts center in 2017, hired an architect in 2021 for a conceptual design and has partnered with various groups to move this closer to reality in 2022.
“State College Borough has nothing like this facility downtown,” said Meyer, executive director of the nonprofit. “It would benefit the borough, it would benefit us and bring us audiences, and it would pool together a whole lot of groups that actually want to perform downtown.”
If everything goes according to plan, Meyer — who served 24 years as the conductor of the Pennsylvania Chamber Orchestra — would like to see construction start sometime before 2030. But he’s quick to acknowledge a lot of work and obstacles, such as funding, remain.
At this early point, no accurate price estimates exist but, based on recent construction elsewhere, such a project would likely cost in the tens of millions. Also, although consultants pinpointed the ideal location as the site of the aging Pugh Street Parking Garage, which is expected to be demolished in the coming years, the borough has not yet agreed to hand over the property — and a non-borough building is also included in the center’s tentative footprint — despite early support from the borough and Happy Valley Adventure Bureau.
“Anytime there is an opportunity to enhance downtown, and the arts and environment downtown, it’s something we always want to be part of the conversation about,” borough planning director Ed LeClear said.
The project is a lofty undertaking but something that could have an indelible impact on both the arts — music, theater and dance — and the local economy. If it continues to progress.
“Every year, nothing has moved backward,” Meyer added. “It’s always moved forward.”
Why build this?
Meyer knows what you’re probably thinking — because he fields the same question just about every day. Why does State College need this if it already has The State Theatre?
For Meyer and other arts-minded people in the region, the answer is easy: The community theater is designed for other uses and simply isn’t big enough.
While offering plenty of value to the community, The State Theatre isn’t built to host simultaneous rehearsals. With a 29-foot stage, it also isn’t large enough to hold musical performances such as symphony orchestras, which require 60-foot stages. Factor in other missing elements — such as orchestra pits for ballets/musicals — and Meyer believes a performing arts center would be a strong downtown addition, and not something redundant.
He’s not alone in his thinking.
One of the main reasons Meyer started his journey with the creation of the Nittany Performing Arts Centre, or NPAC for short, is the same reason a number of others agreed to join his nonprofit’s board of directors. Tom Penkala, general manager for the State College Choral Society, and Jim Latten, founder of the State College Concert Percussion Academy, always struggled in finding dependable places to rehearse.
Sure, local schools and churches often opened their doors. But Latten, Meyer and Penkala all independently traded stories about how they might show up at one venue with their students or musicians, only to learn the venue had accidentally booked someone else. In one case, the floors were waxed and the musicians couldn’t reach the venue. In others, simultaneous events would be going on in the venue, making practice and direction difficult.
Even when practice did operate smoothly, it was virtually impossible to find weekly times and dates that the venues could set aside for the local, professional organizations.
“When people come to these concerts, they don’t realize how difficult it was to find space and their mindset might be, ‘Well, why don’t you just use the public schools or Penn State?’” said Latten, Director of Instrumental Music at Juniata College. “And, no, those public institutions need those spaces for their own activities.”
With the NPAC, about 10 groups have so far expressed interest in using the potential venue — including the Central PA Theatre and Dance Fest, Next Stage Theatre, Nittany Ballet, Nittany Knights Chorus, Nittany Valley Symphony, Performing Arts School of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Chamber Orchestra, State College Area Municipal Band, State College Choral Society and State College Concert Percussion Academy.
In addition to two theaters, the early conceptual plans of the NPAC include six dance studios, three drama studios and three music studios.
“This will give them a place to refine and rehearse their performances so they’re competitive with some of the finer performing symphonies and orchestras on the East Coast,” said Fritz Smith, president of the Happy Valley Adventure Bureau.
He added: “The bottom line is it’s time for this. We’ve reached a point in this community where we need to have this venue.”
What it would look like
The crown jewel of the performing arts center, or at least the starting point, remains the 782-seat multipurpose theater.
Some 500 seats would appear at stage level, with an additional 266 balcony seats and 16 box seats. Colored LEDs would would allow for different palettes, perforated wall panels would help with acoustics, and deployable curtains would further aid with noise absorption. The multipurpose theater would be flexible enough to allow for music, drama or dance — with an 86-foot wide stage and space for more than 30 musicians under the stage apron.
“That’s actually where we started because we didn’t have a place with good acoustics and was the right size for the groups,” Meyer said. “We spent, I would say, two years working on the sizing of this theater.”
A new parking garage — with more levels — would take up about half the size of the 54,614-square-foot lot, with the performing arts center taking up the other half, with about 335 parking spaces compared to the Pugh Street Garage’s current total of 491. (The McAllister Street Parking Deck could potentially see a future expansion.) Other features of the conceptual design, which was created by Boston-based Wilson Butler Architects, include but are not limited to:
- 200-seat studio theater
- 6 dance studios (1 large, 3 medium, 2 small)
- 3 drama studios (1 large, 2 practice)
- 3 acoustically isolated music studios (1 large, 1 ensemble, 1 percussion)
- Recording suite
- 2 retail spaces of 1,000 square feet apiece
- 5 meeting spaces
- Various offices and storage spaces
- Restrooms with lockers
- Rooftop terrace with bar and catering kitchen
“We want to work collaboratively with other theaters in the downtown area,” Penkala said. “But bringing everything together under one roof — it would just be great.”
What’s next
A 3D model fashioned after the conceptual design will be on display in the lobby of the State College Municipal Building through Sunday, to show off the building during the Central PA Festival of the Arts.
The design — which was supported by grants involving both the adventure bureau and the borough’s Redevelopment Authority — is an important step in the creation of a performing arts center, but a long road remains. According to Meyer, his organization’s next step will include extending the services of Webb Management, a New York-based company that’s already done market research on the project, to construct a business plan for the NPAC.
Webb Management is expected to answer crucial questions about the project, from how to best generate income to the ideal number of employees to how to best schedule everything. Meyer also wants to expand fundraising efforts.
Part of Meyer’s tentative timeline also hinges on when the location at Pugh Street and Beaver Avenue becomes available.
“It’s going to depend, first of all, on when the Pugh Garage comes down,” Meyer said. “And so that’s what we have in the back of our minds right now. And we’re trying to plan for that.”
Meyer noted that the $55 million Patricia Reser Center for the Arts in Beaverton, Oregon — which opened earlier this year — took about 15 years in total from idea to reality. And he and other community members hope the NPAC one day follows a similar path in seeing their vision realized.
“The prospect of a performing arts center in the Centre Region is long overdue,” Penkala said. “It’ll bring together musical and theatrical organizations under one roof — and it’s extremely exciting.”
