Howard County officials and community members crowded Toby’s Dinner Theatre in Columbia Tuesday to celebrate the groundbreaking for the county’s new Performing Arts Center and Artists Flats.
“Today, we break ground on a project that so many have been looking forward to for so long. Together, we are ushering in a new era for Downtown Columbia, and I know that because of you and our work, this future is shining bright,” County Executive Calvin Ball said.
At the site of Toby’s Dinner Theatre, the Performing Arts Center will include a new 340-seat dinner theater, two 200-seat black box theaters, dance studios, classrooms and a public art gallery. The center will also house the Columbia Center for Theatrical Arts and the Howard County Arts Council. The Artists Flats will provide 174 units of mixed-income housing, meeting the requirements of the Downtown Columbia Plan to provide affordable housing in a diverse, mixed-use area.
The groundbreaking was “nearly 15 years in the making,” Ball said. The center was included in the 30-year Downtown Columbia Plan passed by the County Council in 2010, when he was a council member.
“When people think of Downtown Columbia, they will know this place as a beacon for the arts to flourish,” Ball said.
Construction began on the project, formerly referred to as the New Cultural Center, in late January. The new Toby’s Dinner Theatre is expected to open in mid-2026 with the grand opening of the Performing Arts Center slated for 2027 and the first residents anticipated to move into the Artists Flats in 2028.
Before tossing pieces of dirt in the parking lot in front of Toby’s, the groundbreaking ceremony began with the lyrics, “We can build a beautiful city. Yes, we can. Yes, we can!” ringing through the theater as performers from Toby’s and the CCTA sang “Beautiful City” from the musical “Godspell.”
At the center of the celebration were Hal and Toby Orenstein, founders of Toby’s Dinner Theatre and the Columbia School for Theatrical Arts, which became the CCTA. The theater opened in 1979 with a performance of “Godspell” and has since served as pinnacle in the county’s arts community.
The Orensteins joined with the founder of Columbia, Jim Rouse, and local and state leaders to make the arts “a vital part of our daily life,” but they are often the first thing to be cut during times of financial uncertainty like the country is currently facing, Jeff Orenstein said. Orenstein is Toby and Hal’s son and spoke on behalf of his parents and the CCTA.
“This project here, the establishment of the Howard County Performing Arts Center will enable CCTA to have its long-awaited home where it can significantly expand and reach its mission, and as Toby and Hal dreamed, inspire thought, action, creativity and positive change for the entire community.”
The project has amassed a budget of about $68.7 million through different funding sources. Around $64 million was approved in the county’s budget for fiscal 2021, which comes from bonds backed by rent from the CCTA and Downtown Columbia tax revenue. Other monies have come from developer contributions and Howard Hughes Holdings Inc., a master developer in Downtown Columbia. The state has also contributed $2.5 million through grants.
The General Assembly adjourned this week, bringing to an end a tough budget season, but Sen. Guy Guzzone said the state will be adding the “finishing touch” with an additional $4.8 million to “get this job done.” The project is “really special, Guzzone said, representing all that Columbia stands for with a mix of housing and the arts.
“We have to look at ourselves through the arts, the good, the bad, the ugly, and we learn. We learn who we are, who we can be. We can be inspired by those things, and that’s what we need. We need that as humans every day, to look at ourselves and see what we’re doing,” Guzzone said. “Well, I have to say, today, what we’re doing is really good.”
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