'So close' but still silent

The concert hall at the Green Music Center looks like it could hold a symphony performance tomorrow, once it gets its chairs.

Workers are putting in the last of the flooring, after which adjustable acoustical panels and drapes will be fitted and technicians will tune the building, much as you tune a musical instrument.

But it is unlikely Sonoma State University can reach its goal of opening the concert hall by the fall of 2010. It will take $14.8 million in donations -- money the university doesn't yet have -- before the first musical note is played in the concert hall.

"We are so close," said Floyd Ross, executive director of the $110 million performance, education and event center taking final shape on campus.

"If a check is written tomorrow, we are still looking at late 2010 to open, and that's pushing it," said Christopher Dinno, SSU's senior director for facilities management who is overseeing the project.

The money is needed to purchase the concert hall's custom-made chairs, which would take 18 months to construct and are the first priority, Dinno said.

The donations also are needed to finish the lobby, restrooms, courtyard and dressing rooms, plus build an enclosure for the heating and air-conditioning equipment, all of which are necessary before it could host a performance.

An additional $3.2 million is needed to finish Schroeder's Recital Hall and two large rehearsal rooms in the music education building.

The center is named after telecommunications pioneer Don Green and his wife, Maureen, who started the project rolling with a $10 million donation in 1997.

So far, state funds and the sale of bonds are paying for $47 million, and $45 million has been raised in donations. That is enough to finance the current construction, $87.7 million, which will be completed next spring.

Patricia McNeil, SSU's vice president of development, said it isn't clear if the slow economy is hurting the $18 million fund drive to complete the complex.

In the 2007-08 fiscal year, the university raised $12 million, which was used to pay off a construction loan.

The university also has received verbal commitments since August for an additional $2 million in donations, which it expects to receive by January, McNeill said.

The first building to be completed, the music education building, opened to students in August. The sprawling structure, paid for by state funds, has classrooms, student rehearsal rooms and staff offices.

Schroeder's Recital Hall, named after the Beethoven-loving pianist in the "Peanuts" comic strip, is attached to the classroom building. It is now a hollow shell and needs donations in order to be completed.

A separate hospitality center, with a restaurant and facilities to host events, is being completed and is scheduled to open next March.

The centerpiece of the complex is the concert hall, which will be home to the Santa Rosa Symphony as well as a venue for performances by rock groups and singers and for lectures. The hall has 16-inch concrete walls to keep in the bass notes and isolate it from outside noise.

"It's an extraordinary facility," Ross said. "I went into the hall the other day and just sat in the hall listening to the lack of any sound."

The interior will use adjustable drapes and sound-absorbing panels on the walls and in the ceiling and louvers over the windows.

The interior is made of three different woods and seats 1,400 on the floor and on two wrap-around balconies.

The chairs will be staggered on the slanted floor to enhance the audience view of the stage, which has five levels of risers for the musicians.

Each chair is placed over a vent, which brings up air from below-floor ducts that are 8 feet wide and 4 feet deep, so big that there is no sound of rushing air.

"It all contributes to the experience they will have when the come here," Ross said.

You can reach Staff Writer Bob Norberg at 521-5206 or bob.norberg@

pressdemocrat.com.