A 36-foot tall Concolor Fir from Dutchman Tree Farms, the same nursery that provided the 1984 White House Christmas tree, will light up the night in downtown this Friday, December 1, at 5:30 PM. The inaugural tree lighting at the new Grand Rapids Art Museum at 101 Monroe Center marks the official address change for the museum and the first phase of its move to the new location in January.
Emcee John Wheeler, CEO of Rockford Construction Companies Inc., will light the tree with help from several local youngsters. The entertainment lineup features The Choir of St. Cecelia Music Society, and a choir from Grand Rapids Community College.
Four weeks ago, the construction crew working on the new GRAM used the tower crane on the site to set the tree in a specially constructed permanent tree stand located between the new building and Rosa Parks Circle.
“We hope every year to make [the celebration] a little bit larger,” said Kristyn Zinner, marketing and public relations manager for the GRAM. “This year it’s still a construction site so we couldn’t do much. As the years roll on, we hope to see it develop into a weekend sort of thing.”
The $55 million, 125,000-square-foot facility will be completed in phases, with individual departments moving in after each completion: administrative offices will move in early January 2007; the education center will move into the expanded 5,000-square-foot space in February; the pavilion, which includes a café, gift shop, and lobby, will be finished in early summer. The final phase will be completion of the gallery space in September.
“We’re tripling our gallery space,” Zinner said. Right now, we do not have enough gallery space to display our permanent collections plus any touring exhibitions we have. Some of our permanent collection has never been on display, and now it will be. There will be a dedicated gallery for our permanent collection and dedicated galleries for touring shows. There will be several spaces where we can have different works on display simultaneously.”
Other amenities will include a 285-seat auditorium, an outdoor courtyard with sculpture, outdoor seating on the plaza between the GRAM and Rosa Parks Circle, and an outdoor water wall.
Zinner said the museum is working to acquire new pieces. The lobby will feature a 25-foot-high work entitled Blue White, commissioned from Ellsworth Kelly, a good friend of Alexander Calder’s.
Source: Kristyn Zinner, Grand Rapids Art Museum; Kate Washburn, Wondergem Consulting, Inc.
www.gramonline.org
Photograph by AJ Paschka
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