Atlanta Opera to Get New Home and Recital Center
The organization will transform the clubhouse on the Bobby Jones Golf Course into a performance space and administrative offices.
The Atlanta Opera, which for the past decade has demonstrated strong audience growth and an impressive array of corporate support, is making its most impressive move yet.
In the next three years it hopes to develop a fundraising campaign to transform the clubhouse of the Bobby Jones Golf Course on the Westside of Atlanta into a $45 million performing arts center and recital hall.
The opera company’s administrative and artistic director, Tomer Zvulun, who has steadily guided the company to new heights in recent years, is enthusiastic over the plans for the new center.
“This new, permanent home for the Atlanta Opera ensures the right fit for our current and future growth. A state-of-the art facility in this park setting will be a source of creativity for our local and visiting musicians. It is perfectly positioned to help us serve audiences and collaborators in our beautiful city and beyond.”
The new facility will transform the old clubhouse into a 56,000-square-foot facility with administrative offices, a rehearsal hall, a film studio and a 200-seat recital hall. Rhyss Wilson, the Opera’s chairman, believes the organization is ready to commit to the move.
“This is the company that safely presented live opera during the pandemic and still presented a balanced budget for the last eight years. The open and welcoming design of this building emphasizes the same values we held during the pandemic and that we will always espouse — of being a skillfully managed organization dedicated to making beautiful music available to everyone, everywhere.”
Two firms, Theater Projects and A’kustiks, LLC., are developing the recital hall as an intimate venue to present classical singers and musicians, jazz ensembles, lectures and spoken word artists. In its seating capacity it will accommodate about the same size audiencess that are now welcomed in the performance space used by The Breman Museum at the Federation building on Spring Street.
The main stage productions of the Opera are expected to continue to be produced at the Cobb Energy Centre, which offers spacious public areas and seating for 2,700.
The location of the new Arts Center and recital hall on Wodward Way borders the outdoor BeltLine loop that is being built out on the Westside.
The Atlanta BeltLine has enjoyed extraordinary success in connecting a number of residential areas of the city to a variety of parks, retail, tourist destinations and attractions. It has revitalized communities to offer new economic growth and increased property values.
The former Bobby Jones clubhouse is a Grecian revival structure built in the early 1900s. According to the opera company, the property was reviewed by the Haynes Manor Foundation for renovation into a community-centric classical recital hall. As plans moved forward, the Atlanta Opera’s search for a new facility was said to have coincided with those of the Foundation.
The Atlanta Opera has worked closely with the Haynes Manor Foundation, the Peachtree Battle Alliance, and the Atlanta Memorial Park Conservancy to plan a performance space in a natural setting.
Allen Post, managing partner of the Atlanta-based architecture firm, Post Loyal, leads the team engaged in designing the Opera’s new home. Preliminary plans call for restoration of the exterior of the historic clubhouse to blend with the surrounding neighborhood’s traditional residences, which are not far from Ahavath Achim Synagogue on Peachtree Battle. The total site area is set on 4.7 acres, including the center with green space and parking. The project is expected to be completed by the summer of 2027.
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