AIArchitect This Week | Former Newseum to Become a Cultural Center

Summary: The Lukmire Partnership plans to transform the former Newseum site in Arlington, Va., just across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., into a new cultural center. The space has been unoccupied since 2002 when vacated by the Newseum, which relocated to downtown D.C. The Lukmire Partnership plans to convert the space into a 53,000-square-foot showcase for the arts that will include an exhibition gallery, a black box theater, a ballroom for cultural dances and lessons, and restaurant and retail space. The yet-to-be-named cultural center is seeking LEED ® Silver—Commercial Interiors and is scheduled to open October 10, 2010 (10/10/10). The original building, designed by Ralph Appelbaum Associates, features an iconic globe dome from its days as the Newseum that will be carried over to the new facility.

The Lukmire Partnership plans to transform the former Newseum site in Arlington, Va., into a new 53,000-square-foot cultural center. The project is scheduled to open October 10, 2010. The site landscape has an iconic dome from its days as the Newseum that will be carried over to the new facility. Photo courtesy the Lukmire Partnership.

Lukmire Partnership, based in Arlington, Va., is working with the Arlington County Department of Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Affairs on the new center. The site is in Rosslyn, a section of Arlington County, Va., that has evolved since the 1940s into a traffic-oriented office district. The county is currently redeveloping the area as a pedestrian-oriented entertainment and cultural hub.

Arlington County has a 20-year lease on the former Newseum site and approved funding for the cultural center project in July. The county wants it to complement a 500-seat, county-run cultural venue across the street, The Spectrum Theater. New York-based Monday Properties, owner of the site, is working with The Lukmire Partnership, Arlington County, and other entities on the cultural center project. The cultural center would be county-owned and supported.

Digital town center
Greg Lukmire, AIA, a principal of the Lukmire Partnership, says Arlington County wants to develop nightlife and activity in Rosslyn, with the new cultural center part of the business plan. The cultural center is expected to have a town square environment that encourages visitors to connect to the world through the Internet.

“The focus is what cultural affairs is going to call a digital town center,” he says. “They want it to connect to the rest of the world. They want people to hang out in a town square with their laptops.”

Plans for the center call for a two-story virtual wall, derived from the existing main lobby of the Newseum. Although still under development, Lukmire says that the virtual wall concept would allow users to connect to and watch people worldwide via the Internet. “Maybe be a node on the World Wide Web,” he says.

The cultural center will have a restaurant, a dance floor, a black box theater with the Washington Shakespeare Company as the primary tenant, a sizable art gallery with an outdoor terrace with views of D.C., a craft store, and an IMAX theater retained inside the dome from the facility’s Newseum days. A terrace for receptions and events will be outside the art gallery, one level above a pedestrian bridge that holds an area called Freedom Park.

The center will be open seven days a week and is expected ultimately to attract some 250,000 visitors annually. “Arlington County plans to have daily events,” Lukmire says. “The county will be selling tickets for some things, but a lot will be free.” The county also hopes to rent out parts of the cultural center to corporate events. It is estimated that the venue will boost economic activity in Rosslyn by $10 million annually.

Much of the existing infrastructure, such as the mechanical systems and lighting, will be redefined and brought up to code to become more energy efficient. Monday Properties will do the structural renovation for the county. A group of business owners called Rosslyn Renaissance is working with Arlington County and Design Army, a graphics firm, on the cultural center project.

“They are trying to bring in lots of design ideas to help make this special,” Lukmire says. “There is this vision that it will be a cultural center that will have food, art, performances, and dance. They want the public to participate and help define what this new digital town center can become.”

Arnold Worldwide, an international advertising firm, is working with the county pro bono to brand the facility. “From everything I’ve heard, they would like to feature the dome,” Lukmire says. The dome has been an eye-catching icon in the area for more than a dozen years, even before the original building was completed in 1997. (During its prolonged construction, the steel-beam structure of the globe was a prominent, albeit enigmatic hint of the museum to be.)

An announcement of the name of the cultural center is expected this fall. The scheduled opening for the center is October 10, 2010.