Crescent Arts Centre » Refurbishment

Crescent Overture – Opening Week April 2010

admin — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 09:51:18 +0000

We are looking forward to welcoming you back into our refurbished home with a week-long Festival from 19 – 25 April 2010.

The Festival will offer lunchtime and evening recitals, free taster workshops and guided tours of the building.

Events include a reading with Pulitzer Prize winning author and new patron of the Crescent Arts Centre Paul Muldoon, Bellydance, Puppetry, Figure Drawing or Lego workshops, an afternoon with Shakespeare and lots more workshops and performances by local and international artists.

The full programme is available to download as a PDF here, and a printed brochure is available from arts and community venues across Belfast.

Hope to see you there!

May – August 2010 Term

Our new term begins in May – you can download the programme now!

Expressions of Interest sought for Cafe and Gallery

admin — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 17:50:51 +0000

The Crescent Arts Centre is inviting Expressions of Interest from organisations and individuals interested in entering into a license agreement to operate either the café space on the ground floor of the newly refurbished premises on the University Road or the gallery space on the first floor. If interested please click on the following links to download the relevant pdfs (top 3 for cafe and bottom 2 for gallery):

1 Cafe Expression of Interest

2 Cafe Servery Layout and Equipment Schedule

3 Cafe Ground Floor Plan

1 Gallery Expression of Interest

2 Gallery First Floor Plan

The Crescent on Good Morning Ulster

admin — Tue, 19 May 2009 16:15:30 +0000

Just a quick note to let you know that the Crescent was featured on Good Morning Ulster this morning (Tuesday 19th). The piece begins at 02:16:08 and you will be able to access it on the BBC iPlayer for seven days.

For further information please have a look at our Donations page or the Refurbishment news category.

A Crescent Relay Team in the Belfast City Marathon 2009

admin — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:51:34 +0000

This year, some of the staff and friends of the Crescent have put together a team to run in the Belfast City Marathon as a fundraiser for the refurbishment project.

The marathon takes place on the 4th May, 2009 and our team will be covering a combined 26 miles across the whole city, passing by the current Crescent building on the Ormeau Road on the final stretch to the finish line at Ormeau Park.

If you’d like to contribute to the team’s fundraising efforts, have a look at their sponsorship page on Justgiving. Also, please pass the address along to anyone you think might be interested:

http://www.justgiving.com/crescent-relay-team/

UPDATE 5th May 2009:

With a total time of 4:14:26, the Crescent Relay Team crossed the finish line in Ormeau Park, finishing 958th out of over 2,000 relay teams. In addition to that, they successfully beat their fundraising target of £1,000! Our thanks to everyone who donated to their campaign!

Crescent Relay Team with marathon certificates

Swifts and the Crescent Arts Centre

admin — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:52:15 +0000

Peter Cush, Senior Scientific Officer at the Biodiversity Unit of the NIEA, has been working with us to preserve the swift colony at the Crescent Arts Centre while the refurbishment project takes place. He’s penned some notes on his work for us to share here:

No one knows when the first swift chose to nest in the roof of the Crescent Arts Centre building. However, we do know that some former 1940’s pupils of Victoria College, which occupied the building between 1874 and 1972, remember hearing swifts screaming round the building in the summer months.

These birds enjoy the company of their own kind and it is likely that as each year passed more and more birds were gradually attracted to the growing colony. Experts think that the Crescent Arts Centre now houses the largest remaining colony of the species in Northern Ireland (Between 20 to 50 pairs).

Thus the Crescent colony had built up probably over decades but if we were not careful during the refurbishment this wonderful natural spectacle could have been lost for all time from the building.

Fortunately everyone involved was determined not only to make sure that the building was faithfully restored but to try as much as possible to look after the needs of the swifts. Thus the various funders, the architects, the contractors, the project manager and experts on the species got together and worked out a plan. This was aimed at not only protecting the swifts during the actual work but securing their nest sites for future years and indeed providing new ones by building special “swift bricks” into the fabric of the new build.

Hopefully the work of this determined partnership will ensure that the marvelous spectacle of the swifts dashing flights as they scream around the building on fine summer days will inspire and be marveled at by generations to come.

One simple step that has already been taken has been to do most of the work on the roof when the swifts were away in Africa but we are now entering a critical stage of the project (May to August 09) when the swifts and the building workers will be working all summer long in close proximity! However we are all confidant that the most critical people at this stage, the contractors, understand and are sympathetic to the needs of the birds.

We are also confident that we will see the whole project through to a successful conclusion. If indeed we achieve this success it will certainly be a great example of what can be achieved by sectors working together.

If you’d like to contribute to the refurbishment project, you can sponsor a swift box on our donations page.

Start of refurbishment announced

admin — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 13:00:34 +0000

With a visit to the Crescent Arts Centre on 1 September 2008, Arts Minister Gregory Campbell announced the start of the refurbishment project of the Crescent Arts Centre building on University Road.

Gregory Campbell announcing the start of the refurbishment project at the Crescent Arts Centre

DCAL: Crescent Arts Centre refurbishment to get underway

Arts Minister Gregory Campbell today announced that capital funding totalling £4.5million has been awarded by the Department of Culture Arts and Leisure for the redevelopment of Belfast’s Crescent Arts Centre.

Rosemary Kelly speaking at the start of the refurbishment project

ACNI: Arts Council Helps protect and develop Crescent Art Centre

Culture, Arts and Leisure Minister, Gregory Campbell, MP MLA, today (1 September) announced the start of the Crescent Arts refurbishment project. The Arts Council of Northern Ireland is also funding this project, to the tune of £1,450,000, which will protect, strengthen and develop this iconic Belfast building and the local arts infrastructure.

Belfast Telegraph: Extra £2million for Crescent Arts Centre refurbishment

South Belfast’s Crescent Arts Centre is set to get a further £2million towards the redevelopment of its historic University Road building from the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure (DCAL), it has been revealed.

CityDance08 – A Gala Evening

admin — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 10:15:41 +0000

A Gala Evening of Contemporary Dance and Classical Ballet
At The Waterfront Studio
Monday 17 November 2008, 8pm
Tickets: £15
This is a fundraising event for the Crescent refurbishment programme.

Watch this space for further information.

Capital Fundraiser position available

admin — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:48:24 +0000

Update: This position is now closed.

CAPITAL BUILDING REFURBISHMENT/EXTENSION PROJECT

This is a renewed advertisement for the post of CAPITAL FUNDRAISER for the above project

The person contracted will be responsible for developing and implementing the centre’s fundraising strategy and will achieve an agreed money-raising target (within a stipulated time frame) through a wide range of fundraising media (including trust, corporate, individual and major donor).

He/she will be accountable to the Crescent Arts Centre board of directors (fundraising committee) and the centre manager. Fundraising experience and a demonstrable track record of successful bid writing and monies raised is essential together with good financial acumen and sound business skills. Experience of fundraising in the charitable sector is desirable.

For further information, please apply, in the first instance to:

Liz Donnan, Manager,
Crescent Arts Centre,
165 Ormeau Road, Belfast BT7 1SQ

Telephone 028 9024 2338.

WE ARE MOVING to temporary premises during refurbishment

admin — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 11:53:41 +0000

Dear Friend of the Crescent,

The start of the refurbishment is imminent. The Crescent Arts Centre will move during building work between April 2008 and January 2010. We will occupy the temporary premises from 7 April 2008 and we hope to see you there.

Our programme will continue as normal with enrolment from 14 April 2008. Classes will start the week beginning Monday 21 April 2008 and run until the week ending Saturday 14 June 2008.

Our temporary new address will be:
165 Ormeau Road
Belfast BT7 1SQ
Tel: 028 9024 2338
Fax: 028 9024 6748

A map of the new address and our supporting venues is available on the Opening Hours & Maps section.

If you have any questions, please contact us.

Message from the Manager – Crescent Arts Centre Refurbishment and Extension

admin — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 12:32:25 +0000

As I am sure you are aware, we have been working hard ‘behind the scenes’ to achieve the centre’s refurbishment and at long last this is imminent. On behalf of the Board
and staff of the Crescent I am delighted to let you know our plans for the coming months, which have now been finalised.
The first, and most important news is that we now have a timetable for the preparation and construction works for our project. The first step in this is that we need to
vacate the Crescent building by the end of March 2008, immediately following the end of this programme. This is to enable various building surveys to be completed. There will then be a two month European tendering process to appoint building contractors. We
are aiming to have builders on site by August 2008 and the ‘new Crescent’ finished by December 2009.
We are in negotiations now with a view to renting premises (within a mile radius of the Crescent) to which we will relocate while the building work is in progress.
Our intention is to have these premises available before 28 March 2008.
We plan to continue our programmes of artistic activities in the new location and work is ongoing to establish the content and volume of those programmes.
Once we have confirmation of the premises and established the capabilities of the spaces available we will, of course, publish the next Crescent programme. Whilst we will do our utmost to accommodate as many activities as possible, you will appreciate that we will not be able to meet all such requirements in the temporary premises.
As the January 2008 programme will be the last in the current Crescent building, we would like to thank you all, for your loyal support over many years and are counting
on that continuing support through this period of transition. We look forward to the day when we can welcome you back to the refurbished Crescent.
During January, February and March we will keep you in the picture as things develop! Look out for our new temporary address on our web site and notice boards.
We hope you enjoy the images of the Crescent in its former guise as Victoria College and the new designs for the refurbished Crescent throughout the programme.
With every good wish.
Liz Donnan