$4.5M greenlit for Austin Playhouse's proposed new arts center

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Austin City Council approved an allocation of $4.5 million to go toward Austin Playhouse to support the organization's new arts center.

The $4.5 million will go toward the new center's projected $7.5 million costs, per a city release. The project will cover two new theaters, rehearsal and classroom spaces, as well as a lobby in the multi-purpose facility that will be open to the public.

“We’re intent on raising the profile of Austin’s arts community with our decades-long history of supporting emerging arts organizations through subsidized rent, mentorships, and collaborations,” Austin Playhouse Producing Artistic Director Lara Toner Haddock said in the release. “Having flexible and affordable spaces throughout the city is essential to the sustainability of Austin's cultural ecosystem. We will still need to raise the remaining funds necessary to complete the project, but this tremendous support from the city makes it a gap and not an insurmountable chasm.”

For more than 20 years, Austin Playhouse has operated in different venues across town. Back in 2019, the organization purchased a 2.8-acre tract of undeveloped land near the intersection of U.S. Hwy. 183 and Cameron Road. That purchase came after a series of community conversations in 2017 that surveyed existing arts organizations on space needs and venues.