Buddy Holly Hall in Texas Receives BD+C Silver Building Team Award

The Buddy Holly Hall of Performing Arts and Sciences has been honored by Building Design+Construction with a Silver Building Team Award. Buddy Holly Hall is a cultural hub of Lubbock and a cornerstone of downtown revitalization in addition to fueling the economy for years to come.

The project is the largest performing arts facility in West Texas and is suited for a variety of tenants and events. The stakeholders are diverse including Ballet Lubbock, the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra, Lubbock Independent School District Visual and Performing Arts, and Broadway producer The American Theater Guild. The state-of-the-art campus features two theatres, event space, a full-service bistro, and a ballet academy all under one roof. The facility can accommodate large touring musicals as well as intimate dance performances and community events. It will facilitate education and banquets and be acoustically flexible to adapt to any musical genre.

From Building Design+Construction

Project Team Collaboration

The decision to engage the building’s operator early in the design process was invaluable to the team delivering a design that was operationally efficient and cost-effective. Periodic estimates were performed independently by the GC and a cost estimator. The developer, architect, and GC managed the change order process based partly on ROI analysis.

The project’s structural engineering team worked within one Revit model and produced a consolidated set of construction documents. Another example of teamwork: the stage, where extensive rigging and lighting required additional performance steel for galleries, loft beams, catwalks, and the grid iron.

Collaboration was the key to reducing the cost of this project from its original estimate of $225 million. It also played a role in the decision of the Lubbock Independent School District to enter into a usage contract with Buddy Holly Hall rather than build its own stand-alone 70,000-SF performing arts center that would have cost the district $30 million.

Judges’ Comments

“Collaborative mix of clients, as well as collaborative design/engineering team, are very impressive. Stair seemed to be a complex and impressive design solution.”

Building Team

Submitting firm: Diamond Schmitt Architects

Owner/developer: Garfield/Public Private LLC

Client: Lubbock Entertainment and Performing Arts Association

Architect: Diamond Schmitt Architects

Architect of Record: Parkhill

Associate Architect: MWM Architects

Structural Engineers: Entuitive, MWM Architects, Parkhill

General Contractor: Lee Lewis Construction

Acoustics, AV, IT Consultant: Jaffe Holden Acoustics

Mechanical Engineers: Crossey Engineering, Parkhill

Plumbing Engineer: Parkhill

Theater Planners and Consultants: Schuler Shook

Market and Business Planning Consultant: Webb Management Services