A Tour of the Tempe Center for the Arts

On Sunday, Bob and I attended the Grand Opening Family Day at the Tempe Center for the Arts. It was a hot and humid day. Thank God, the hosts had plenty of ice-cold water and food too for the multitude of people that toured the center. The free performances were classy too.

The main theater is designed so that none of the seats is more than 55 feet away from the stage. But the parking lot was not designed to handle as many cars as showed up on Sunday. We had to walk a good quarter of a mile to get to the Center. Maybe people came for the hamburgers and hot dogs.

Some facts mentioned in the Arizona Republic about the Center:

• The Tempe Center for the Arts is 88,000 square feet.
• It will primarily serve about a dozen community music, theater, dance and visual arts groups.
• The main theater is modeled after an Italian opera house. None of the 600 seats is more than 55 feet from the stage.
• The main theater has four levels of seating.
• The dome above the main theater is made of 280 tons of concrete. It was cast in place during a single pour that took nearly eight hours.
• The arts center is 100 feet tall, with a main roof of five layers.
• The 55,000-gallon negative-edge reflecting pool creates a 300-foot long waterfall into Tempe Town Lake.
• Building the arts center took 1,400 tons of steel.
• There is 40,000 square feet of wood paneling inside the arts center, including African mahogany and oak.
• About 760 wine glasses can fit on the lobby’s glass drink rails.
• There are 300 doors. The soundproof doors to the theater weigh more than 300 pounds.
• There are 347 parking spaces for vehicles and 130 for bicycles. (Not enough for Sunday’s event.)

It was a fun day. I can’t wait to attend some of the performances.

Friends of Tempe center for the Arts