Durham's new venue shines

Performing Arts Center is 'quite a light, quite a beacon'

Durham's new Performing Arts Center makes its statement best at night.

By day, it is a monumental block of concrete and brick, relieved by a four-level facade of glass and steel.

But as dusk settles in, throwing long and chilly shadows across Blackwell and Pettigrew streets, the lights come up and the block becomes a thing of magic: an otherworldly palace promising warmth and wonder.

"Quite a light, quite a beacon," architect Phil Szostak promised the Durham City Council a few weeks ago.

It's been a good year for Durham's central-city revival. Homes have opened in the former American Tobacco and Liggett & Myers Tobacco factories, the Diamond View II office building now overlooks the Durham Bulls Athletic Park and the former Golden Belt factory has been turned into residences, artists' studios, gallery and office space.

Now the $44 million Performing Arts Center is ready for its debut Sunday night, with a concert by B.B. King, followed by a ribbon-cutting and open house Monday evening. On both nights, the center's facade will glow, providing a visual link across the streets and railroad tracks that separate the American Tobacco district and the central business district.

Intimate vastness

Inside the concrete and brick, there is a 2,800-seat hall -- bigger than anything in Raleigh, Charlotte or Richmond; Raleigh's Memorial Auditorium seats 2,277. Standing onstage, one may be reminded of the Vehicle Assembly Building at Cape Canaveral -- up there is a sense of vastness. Looking out, though, is "where you really appreciate it," Szostak said. "Twenty-eight hundred people, it's going to be pretty awesome when you see that many faces out there."

Oddly, though, there is a cozy feel to the place, with its subdued red fabrics and warm wood paneling. The back wall is actually closer to the stage at DPAC than at Duke University's 1,232-seat Page Auditorium, Szostak said. The upper-level seats are 60 feet closer than those in Raleigh's Memorial Auditorium. The hall compensates with width -- more seats per row -- "because we wanted to get people in closer."

Far above the seats, black catwalks and utility fixtures disappear into darkness at showtime; 78 cables can maneuver 140,000 pounds of sets and props at a time, enough to handle the 24 truckloads that travel with "The Lion King."

Out back, the loading dock can handle three semi-trailers at a time. "That was a make-or-break thing for the operators," Szostak said. "If you don't have a loading dock that is easy to deal with, it costs you so much because you have only so much time to get in and out -- and then you start paying overtime."

The view from the top

The DPAC's key may be the loading dock, but the inspiration point is out front: the glassed lobby, waiting and concession areas with a grand stairway on the Mangum Street side. A Jaume Plensa sculpture, "Bridge to the Sky," shoots a vertical shaft of blue light just outside the glass.

"As you're in here, you're always looking at it," Szostak said. "As you go upstairs, you see that Plensa. ... Pretty neat."

The view all around is pretty neat as well. From American Tobacco to the N.C. Mutual Building, the railroad tracks and the Downtown Loop, the Hill Building tower, Kress and the Old Courthouse, it sweeps more than 200 degrees to the white bulk of the Durham County jail.

Performing Arts Center general manager Bob Klaus has worked at several venues, including Raleigh's Walnut Creek Amphitheater, and says he gauges the success of a performance hall by "the reaction of people who walk through the door.