UNC and Chapel Hill are planning to bring a large performing arts center to Carolina Square at 123 West Franklin Street, the site of the former University Square.

Chancellor Carol Folt made the announcement Wednesday.

The project is a $5 million collaboration between the University, the Town of Chapel Hill and two development companies.

via UNC-Chapel Hill An artist's rendition of the planned arts center.

via UNC-Chapel Hill
An artist’s rendition of the planned arts center.

Carolina Performing Arts has a long list of shows to choose from for the 2015 season, from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, to blues artist Buddy Guy, to a new take on the ancient play, Antigone, featuring Juliette Binoche.

Ticket-holders can see these polished performances at Memorial Hall in Chapel Hill. But what they can’t see is the brainstorming, writing, and rehearsing that goes into these acts. That’s what UNC’s Executive Director for the Arts Emil Kang hopes to change with the new performing arts center planned for downtown Chapel Hill.

“We bring symphony orchestras and ballet companies. They don’t come and practice in front of our town’s children.”

“Most of our public presentations take place right here in Memorial Hall. However by the time you see these performances, they’ve already gone through a lengthy developmental process,” says Kang. “And as part of our educational mission we are eager to uncover and unpack the creative process for the benefit of the entire community and have sought the space to plant the seeds for future projects. That’s what The Core@Carolina Square is all about.”

The Core@Carolina Square is the name for the planned 8,500-square-foot performing arts center. The building will feature a black-box theatre and a studio for performers, students and community groups. Chancellor Folt says the spaces will be used not only for performances, but also for making rehearsals open to the public.

“We bring symphony orchestras and ballet companies. They don’t come and practice in front of our town’s children,” says Folt. “This is where you might have a fellowship, you might have a class that’s going there, you might have a great choreography. But they take weeks to develop a new piece. So they could be using that as part of their extended performance space.

“It’s more of a laboratory space where we open the door and let people into see it.”

Kang says The Core will also provide space for projects that integrate the arts with the sciences, technology and health affairs. One example of such a project is the collaboration between dancer Hope Boykin and pediatric oncologist Stuart Gold. Boykin teaches dance to Gold’s child cancer patients. She’s hopeful The Core will provide a permanent home for their program.

“You see them start to want to reach their arms, and they bob their heads with the music and then the next thing you know, they’re up moving, and they realize that they’ve conquered that battle,” says Boykin.

According to Folt, The Core will cost $5 million to build. The university has already provided $4 million for the project.

“This is a way of developing out our real-estate portfolio and also building our academic program,” says Folt. “Because it’s really an investment in an area for our arts faculty and students to create.

“It will more than pay for itself in the long-run. This is the kind of program that you invest now and then you get a lot more back.”

UNC’s investment in The Core comes on the heels of its investment in another public-private partnership: the creation of an HIV/AIDS research and pharmaceutical company with Glaxo-Smith-Klein.

The Core is slated to open in August of 2017.