Gautier gets first look at future Town Center Amphitheater, Songwriters Performing Arts Center
GAUTIER, Miss. (WLOX) - For the first time, Gautier unveiled renderings of the Town Center’s amphitheater at Tuesday night’s council meeting.
The plans lay out a versatile design that will allow the Town Center to host a variety of events. Throughout the design process, architect John Stolarski says the architectural firm constantly collaborated with city leaders.
“We worked with the city hand-in-hand to design this to be flexible so that we could use this as a park and also as a music venue,” said Stolarski.
The main focus of the amphitheater is bringing in musical acts. With that in mind, the space is designed to be a park that will be open to the public most of the time but be able to become an enclosed ticket venue, said the architect. It will feature a large shade structure and a turf lawn seating area that can house 1,250 seats in the front with standing room in a common grass area in the back.
To help with that, Gautier City Manager, Paula Yancey says the city received input from a concert promoter.
“The promoter has heavily weighed in on the design, the things we included,” said Yancey. “We really relied on him because we wanted to make sure that when we built it, we built it for national acts.”
A consultant that helped design similar venues was also brought in to further ensure the design of the amphitheater would be successful. Stolarski says their experience helped lead the design in the right direction.
“They designed venues this size and much larger,” said Stolarski. “It helps the city because you get the benefits of their lessons learned so they have the expertise to bring in so we know exactly what to do and get it right on the first try.”
The park will also have a concession area for multiple food trucks, as well as a large movie screen for community movie nights. In addition, the main entrance to the park has been designed to create a “front door” to Gautier, welcoming people to the city.
The amphitheater is in the schematic design phase and plans on opening bids to contractors this fall with the hopes of beginning construction in early 2022. The current estimate for construction is set to run between $2.5 to $3.5 million.
Discussions are also being had regarding the design of the Mississippi Songwriters Performing Arts Center, which is also slated to be built in Gautier’s Town Center. That project is still in its conceptual design phase and will most likely not open up for bids until after the new year.
Gautier is working with the Mississippi Songwriters Alliance to provide a cultural/education facility that will be home to the Mississippi Songwriters Festival.
The proposed space is set to be around 10,000 square feet with an indoor/outdoor covered space for small performances. It will also include a fully functional recording studio, as well as classroom space to help the organization and other community groups.
Watch the videos below to see the full renderings of the Town Commons Amphitheater and the Songwriters Performing Arts Center:
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