Fresno Pacific University Warkentine Culture & Arts Center

Location

Fresno

Sq. Ft.

23,000

Year Completed

2022

Construction Partner

Quiring General, LLC

The Warkentine Culture and Arts Center on Fresno Pacific University’s main campus in southeast Fresno consolidates the university’s art, music, and theater departments under one roof and provides much-needed performance and gallery space. The building is located between Butler Avenue on the north and Townsend Avenue on the south, surrounded by adjoining university owned residential buildings.

The project features a flexible, multi-purpose auditorium with motorized retractable seating for 500 that allows the space to be used for performances, as well as other university-wide events. A 100-seat black box theater, an art gallery, and back-of-house spaces, including a green room, dressing rooms, a make-up room, practice rooms, and storage rooms round out the program of this vital addition to the campus. With arts and culture as the medium, the new facility bridges the gap between the community and the university by inviting others to use the facility and attend events.

A captivating grand lobby that opens off of a welcoming, south-facing, covered plaza serves as a student lounge and social hub of the campus. The Warkentine Culture and Arts Center is the first step in a series of campus master plan interventions that calls for the conversion of Garden Avenue from a neighborhood street to a landscaped promenade that will connect the campus core to the new Culture and Arts Center.