1.  A performance hall once home to concerts by Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles and James Brown will reopen next-door to Pittsburg High School Feb. 23 after a $9 million renovation.

  • The Creative Arts Building at 250 School St. near the Pittsburg Civic Center underwent major renovations paid for with funds from an $85 million bond approved by local voters in 2006. The venue is now fully compliant with disabled access laws and seats about 2,000 people in the main theater, Pittsburg Unified School District Superintendent Linda Rondeau said.
  • "It's really exciting that this was a venue that met the criteria to get performances by Louis Armstrong and Ray Charles, but had also been a fabulous venue for local performers and students at the high school," Rondeau said.

2.  Work on the Creative Arts Building, or CAB, began after the new high school opened in August 2010, Rondeau said.

  • The stage has brand new, 30-foot-tall acoustical shells fashioned from birch wood, which will protect the stage's sound quality from the harshness of its solid concrete surroundings, carrying more rounded music to the audience, according to building supervisor Michael Sullivan.
  • The large theater also houses numerous points of disabled access and listening aids for audience members who may need them, Sullivan added.
  • "This is such a great, storied building," he said. "When it opened in the middle of the hysteria over the Soviet threat, they even conceived of it as a bomb shelter. The basement was packed with water and supplies."

3.  Part of the building's new adornment is a 90-foot frieze above the entry doors, which was hand-painted by Pittsburg native Ronald McDowell, acclaimed for his artwork depicting civil rights leaders in Alabama.

  • McDowell said the project took him more than two months to complete beginning in October, and that he painted alongside the construction workers who were renovating the building.
  • "I watched the construction crew work and transform a building that was almost deteriorating and making it brand new; it was just amazing," McDowell said. "We worked in sync. It was making it all work together to become this beautiful masterpiece. I see the whole building as a complete work of art. It's like one big sculpture to me."
  • The painting, which depicts more than 100 artists who performed at the building after it was opened in 1959, is named "The Symphony of the Arts." McDowell said he intended each of the portraits, lined up side by side at varying heights, to represent notes on sheet music.
  • "I did that because Pittsburg represents the impossible dream to me," he added, "where all these different cultures mix and they make beautiful harmony, beautiful music."

4.  The dedication ceremony begins at 6 p.m. next Thursday and is free and open to the public. It will include the opening of a time capsule sealed in 1955, and performances by local talent.

  • To keep track of how many people are coming, organizers are asking residents to get their free tickets at the high school or the school district office, or by calling 925-473-2390, ext. 7506.
  • Contact Sean Maher at 925-779-7189. Follow him on Twitter at @OneSeanMaher.

5.  IF YOU GO
What: Creative Arts Buiding dedication
When: 6 p.m. Feb. 23
Where: 250 School St., Pittsburg
Cost: Free
Info: Call for tickets at 925-473-2390, ext. 750