Colorado College Bulletin

Historic Gift Needed to Cap Campaign Funding for the Arts

While donors supported the arts at unprecedented levels during the Campaign for Colorado College, the proposed Cornerstone Arts Center continues to await the gift that will make it possible. 

Of the $20 million campaign goal for the Cornerstone Arts Initiative, donors contributed more than $8 million, including $2 million from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation for the renovation of Packard Hall. About $6 million has been earmarked for construction of a new arts center. 

Steve Elder, associate vice president of development, says the college will continue to promote the center strategically across the country.  “We’re looking for very large gifts, about $12 million to $15 million, to really get the project solidified. This is an opportunity for a donor to make a historic gift to the college -- one that will be three times larger than the largest single gift ever made to the college. That can take time, but that’s really the key to the project.” 

Proposed for land along Cascade Avenue between Cache La Poudre and Dale streets, the Cornerstone Arts Center was first discussed in 1996 after an innovative interdisciplinary arts curriculum by that name was announced. A scale model of the building was unveiled at the January 2000 Cornerstone Arts Symposium on campus. It’s been a lead campaign project for the past 18 months. 

The prospect of finding a donor who will provide at least half of the necessary funding is heightened by the national profile the building will have when it is completed.  “This will be a signature building on campus,” Elder says. “It’s a very innovative design. We selected world-class architect Antoine Predock because he understands the premise of the Cornerstone Arts Initiative and how to express it in design. 

“In the same way El Pomar Foundation provided the impetus for the new Tutt Science Center during the campaign, we will need a donor to step forward to provide the naming gift for this building,” says Elder. “It is our policy not to start construction until this project is fully funded.” 

Elder says the center will give a highly visible venue to an arts curriculum already in place.  “It provides performance spaces, working spaces, and gallery spaces.  Art will come out of this building into the community.  It will be a huge new venue to teach the arts, an inspirational venue where artists collaborate, create, and perform.  It makes a statement about our commitment to teaching art in a liberal arts environment.” 

To learn more about the arts center, contact Elder at 1-800-782-6306.

Click here to find out more about the campaign.

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