With the outdoor amphitheater at Heavenly Farms, East Brunswick, ready to be used for the first time this weekend, officials expect to soon know when the adjacent arts center will be complete.
Mayor William Neary said he hopes to have the facility, now being called the Cultural Arts Center, operational by the end of the year, but it is possible that construction will last a couple of months into 2009.
The outdoor amphitheater will hold its first show, a concert by a Tina Turner tribute band, at 7 p.m. Saturday. However, there is a lot more to the approximately $2.6 million facility than the amphitheater. The arts center will provide a 195- seat indoor theater for Playhouse 22, a kitchen,
and meeting space for township groups. The township’s public library is always at a loss to provide as much space as is requested.
Playhouse 22, which for decades operated at a location on Dunhams Corner Road that was ultimately sold by the township, will use the new stage, although it will be a townshipowned and -operated theater.
Neary said the new facility will have better lighting, seating, food service and other accommodations than the old playhouse afforded.
“They will be able to do more than they did,” Neary said of the townshipbased theater troupe.
Township Finance Director L. Mason Neely said the shell of the arts center building is complete, all the necessary utilities have been brought to the site, and the sewer system is in place. He said the HVAC contract has been awarded, and the system is being installed. The interior walls have been installed and insulated, and the bathrooms are being constructed.
The township still has to award contracts for much of the remaining work. Neely said the town will receive bids for rigging, lighting and a sound system early this month, and will then have a pre-bid meeting to go over the remainder of work. Near the middle of this month, the township will receive bids for the interior fitout, he said.
The total cost of the arts center was a matter of public question and debate over the past couple of years, but Neary said this spring that the facility would not cost more than $2.6 million. Neely said all the costs of the facility will be known by Sept. 17.
“Then it is just a matter of the contractors complying with the construction [timetable],” Neely said.
He did not give a date as to when the work would be complete.
“I need to see the bids first and then I’ll be able to tell if it is economical. I can’t give a deadline now,” he said.
Councilman David Stahl said it is possible that some of the contracts will be on the agenda for the council’s Sept. 8 meeting.
Neary said the facility has been built thus far with the $1.3 million gleaned from the sale of the Dunhams Corner Road property, along with $1 million in grants from Middlesex County, and another $200,000 in bonds from the township.