Photo by Chelsea Dunfee
The University Center for the Arts building is special; some even dare calling it iconic to Fort Collins.
You can tell by the way Jennifer Clary’s lips slowly purse together before the edges slowly pull apart horizontally, pushing her cheeks up and raising her ears as a smile breaks across her face as if you can see her analyzing her own stake in the building, just before a wave of nostalgia crashes in. She hides her smile, which is almost a smirk because she has a deep understanding of secrets the UCA building holds.
Clary tosses her curly red hair and continues the tour. She doesn’t answer the question right away, first explaining aspects of the thrust stage, but once outside in the hallway she remembers parts of her past and tells of her time in the building. She was first a Fort Collins High School student, enrolled at Colorado State University and finally an employee of her collegiate alma mater.
“This building, to now work in it, makes me feel very blessed and happy inside,” Clary said. “I recognize Fort Collins High School walking around inside here. A lot of things have been renovated, but little things like the tile on a bathroom floor, I remember from my teenage years…”
Yet, even the smallest thing like bathroom tiles or old beams from the school gymnasium are just some of the many parts of the UCA building, after a $43 million renovation by CSU that remains of the old Fort Collins High School.
‘a blend of old and new’
The UCA building opened in September 2008 after being practically gutted and transformed into a world-renowned home for all art forms. The walls still look freshly painted, and the carpets smell brand new. Walking around, you can picture in your mind the corridors transforming into their old high school hallways, lined with lockers or the university theater serving as half a gymnasium. The set’s shop floor still has the wood paneling and painted key lines.
“The quality of the facility is outstanding,” junior Kara Leonardi, a music education major said. “It really puts our music and theater and dance on par with what the big universities of the country have to offer. It is incredibly beautiful.”
The process of converting the high school into the UCA was a three-phrase process that began over a decade before the center opened its doors. In 1995, Fort Collins High School closed its doors after a new school was built and CSU purchased the land from the Poudre School District.
By 2003, construction on the state-of-the-art Edna Rizley Griffin Concert Hall started. Then began the second phase, a $4.7 million plan to create the Bohemian Complex-a 318-seat university theater, 100-seat studio theater and 2,400-square-foot William Runyon Music Hall. Finally space was created for the University Art Museum, Avenir Museum of Design and Merchandising, 285-seat Organ Recital Hall and 200-seat university dance theater.
What’s special about this construction project was the 37,000-square-foot “retrofit” of the old building, recycling what was already there to preserve the historic architecture that has become a landmark in Fort Collins.
“It’s a blend of old and new,” Clary said. “It was challenging but it was also important to preserve this. Now we are upping the level of education. The arts used to be in strange buildings on campus and now they are fostered by the best facilities in the state.”
Clary could walk through each room in the building, knowing something unique about it off the top of her head. Like the building, her memories are blend of past and present. She has fond memories of the rooms in her past, but knows better than anyone the recent changes that brighten CSU students’ futures.
“The retrofit was pretty well done,” Leonardi said. “You can see where the old parts of the building are but it’s neat that a lot of alumni come in to see the building and they share their memories of Fort Collins High School with us.”
the best for all arts
“This building is wonderful,” said Linny Frickman, University Art Museum director. “The architects did a masterly job blending the old and the new. It’s very comfortable for both teaching and programming aspects. The building has meant so much to the community the history of this building that I think that the continued use of the new building is really wonderful. It respects the history of Fort Collins.”
A perfect example of the uses Frickman speaks of is the Griffin Concert Hall with its jaw-dropping beauty and advanced acoustical design. Clary pointed out how all the pieces of the ceiling clouds are specially angled for the best sound. Each seat in the concert hall was created to act like a human body, absorbing sound so that even if the hall is empty, performers can practice without an altered noise. At 7,800 square feet, the Denver Post ranks Griffin Concert Hall as one of the five best venues in Colorado for classical music.
Close by, the 318-seat University Theatre is unique for its three-quarter-round thrust theater. The thrust design, a stage that juts out into the audience makes for more intimacy between performers and their viewers. Nearly 7,000 people attend the four theater events in the facility each year, according the centers personal records.
Another highlight of the UCA is the University Dance Theatre, designed and built specifically for dance performance. It is specially made with springboard flooring – the only such dance center in Northern Colorado and only one of two in the entire state.
“The new building is a stepping stone for all the departments that it houses. It’s going to improve the quality of learning,” sophomore music minor Kaitlyn Jaffke, who came to CSU from Wisconsin said. “Using the facilities are a great learning environment and I feel lucky to be at CSU with this opportunity.”
a sense of belonging
Clary feels like an appendage of the UCA. Her deep emotional attachment and personal history with the building itself makes her story just as important as the remodeling of old Fort Collins High School. She exudes passion, and is much in her own at 1400 Remington St. For her, the UCA is where she belongs.
“I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to be a part of this,” she said. “It’s what excites me. I used to work for a music company called Ultimate Support, and I loved the music industry but that company was put up for sale. That’s when I began working for the School for the Arts part time, and then it became permanent.”
Her love for all things UCA is obvious, and her graceful attentiveness to the details makes her sharing of the building’s history even more meaningful. She, like many other Fort Collins High School alumni breathe history into the new life of the UCA.
But it’s the current students who are finding a new home here, that breathe in the future.
“There are no downsides to the building,” Leonardi said. “The distance from the campus takes some travel time
Tags: Volume 5 Issue 1
