Honoring the city’s native son rock-and-roller, this $127.6-million performing arts campus is West Texas’ largest dedicated performance venue. Completed in December 2020, the center includes the four-level, 2,200-seat Helen DeVitt Jones Theater, the 425-seat Crickets Studio Theater, a 6,000-sq-ft multipurpose Grand Hall, the 22,000-sq-ft Ballet Lubbock Pre-Professional Academy, a 100 seat bistro and a 2,500-sq-ft commercial kitchen. 

Photo by Dsai and Casey Dunn Photography

The showcase lobby features a 56-ft-tall helical spiral staircase and a brushed iron image of Holly strumming a Stratocaster created from 9,000 guitar picks. Outside, the 6,200-sq-ft “Bird’s Tail” Canopy is a split-concrete roof structure supported on four splayed concrete columns, with each tail counterbalancing the one on the opposite side. 

Photo by Dsai and Casey Dunn Photography

Challenges included heat and the project’s floodplain location. Also, with the city economy booming, labor was difficult to find, so the workload was spread among several subcontractors. For the lobby stairs, the team had to procure rolled tube steel from another state and shop-weld it locally, while heavy stair sections had to be carefully winched through the trusses.

Photo by Dsai and Casey Dunn Photography

Nearly every architectural feature in the building is custom made, including the 415 light fixtures making up the chandelier in the audience chamber, the tilt wall concrete panels in The Crickets Theater and the various sized CMUs in the Jones Theatre.

Photo by Dsai and Casey Dunn Photography