An extensive project to create a comprehensive arts district on and around the site of the Madison Civic Center, 211 State St., is currently underway thanks largely to a $100 million donation from area businessman Jerry Frautschi.
The current construction on the corner of Fairchild and State streets is that money turned into the brick, steel and glass needed to remodel and expand the current Civic Center and transform it into the state-of-the-art Overture Center, to be completed in 2005.
\Certainly Jerry Frautschi's $100 million gift is the largest arts gift of its type in American history,"" said Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4.
According to George Austin, president of the Overture Development Corp., the initial stage of the project, which includes the construction of the new 2,200-seat Overture Hall, three new multi-purpose areas and a new amphitheather, is well underway.
""The first phase is under construction and is on schedule to be completed by 2004. Every month you see it taking more of a shape,"" he said, adding that the renovations to the current Oscar Mayer Theatre and Isthmus Playhouse and the creation of the new Madison Art Center facility will begin immediately after work is finished on Phase I.
Despite the grand scale of the Overture Center, Madison Mayor Sue Bauman, along with Verveer and Austin, said she wants to guarantee the project does not lose sight of the local arts, which Austin called the ""lifeblood of the project.""
""Basically what we have is a thriving performing visual arts community that doesn't have adequate space to perform,"" Bauman said. ""The Overture Center, with its world-class facilities, will raise the bar for local performing groups.""
Included in the local arts scene are a number of students who will find themselves with access to amazing facilities, according to Verveer.
""I'm confident that the Overture Center will be a great boon to UW students, as it will be to the entire community,"" he said. ""Students at Madison, who are themselves studying the arts'for example, dance and theater'there [will be] performance spaces that hadn't existed in our community.""
While still providing spaces for local groups to perform, the Center will potentially draw in larger, more extravagant shows, due to the expansive Overture Hall, which, according to Austin, will be important for the ""economic health"" of the Center.
""The Hall will be a multipurpose theater,"" he said. ""It will be able to house a wide variety of Broadway shows that heretofore had not been able to come to Madison.""
As construction moves ahead, it has altered the face of State Street as well as affected traffic on some of the side streets, including West Mifflin Street, but Bauman said she has received few complaints concerning the project.
""It has changed part of State Street but by this point I think people are used to it,"" she said. ""Looking at the long-term growth of Madison ... this is just going to propel us into the future.""
Verveer said he believes State Street will be able to maintain its ""cool, funky nature"" after the Overture Center debuts.
""What incoming students see [on State Street] at SOAR is pretty much what they're going to get their entire time at the university,"" he said.
