An architect’s rendering of what the performance hall inside the new Texas A&M University-Kingsville Education Complex and Music Building will look like. Construction of the $60 million project is expected to begin in June. Courtesy photo
Construction of a new $60 million music building at Texas A&M University-Kingsville will begin next month, the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents agreed at an April meeting. The funding was approved by the Texas Legislature in June 2015.
The new state-of-the-art facilities will replace the aging Bellamah Music Building, which was built in 1959 to accommodate 100 students and 12 faculty members. The program now has 250 students and 30 faculty members.
Highlights of the new building, which will nearly triple in size from 32,000 square feet to 90,000 square feet, include a 450- to 500-seat performance hall, a 100-seat recital/lecture hall, four large rehearsal halls and three chamber music/methods halls.
Other features are:
• 32 faculty studios/offices
• 48 student practice rooms
• five classrooms
• two study areas
• one computer music lab
• one electronic keyboard lab
• one recording studio
• one administrative office suite
• storage facilities
Texas A&M-Kingsville opened in 1925 and is the oldest continuously operating public institution of higher learning in South Texas. Home to about 8,300 students, TAMU-K has 80 buildings on 250 acres in historic Kingsville about 40 miles to the northeast of Corpus Christi.
