Butler Dance Education Center Blog

April 13, 2007

Well, many people say everything happens for a reason. Today, I couldn’t park right by the BDEC, because the setup from the Austin Fine Arts Festival was going on. So I parked over on West Avenue and walked across the creek.

I’ll admit, I didn’t know what a nice path is back there—and so well laid out. As you can see from the photos I shot, the whole Hike and Bike system is literally a block west of the BDEC—another beautiful advantage to our location.

Steve Frinz tells me that they will be able to start on the finishing of the floors in the showers and bathrooms next week and the dance floors can be installed very soon after that, once the air conditioning is installed and working. All the parts are on hand now to assemble the chilled water/air conditioning system and that will be a top priority.

Looking east across the footbridge that leads to the BDEC neighborhood. That’s the west side of the 360 Building on the left and the BDEC is just beyond the trees on the right.

The Hike and Bike Trail goes all the way to Town Lake and is accessible on foot about a block west of the BDEC. It will be a nice place for dancers and BA staffers to stroll, jog or just hang out and relax. This lady was kind enough to pose for me on the trail with her dog.

The glass is totally installed on the front of the Armstrong/Connelly Studio and the distinctive trim element’s surface is finished. This gives you a better idea about the face we’ll be putting on to the world.

The AustinVentures StudioTheatre is looking more finished every day. You can see the taping and floating on the walls and the back wall to the right in this photo is where the 287 seats will roll out. The ceiling is in and finished.

This shot of the AdlerLand Studio shows the bottom windows that children can use to observe Academy classes.

This is the hallway between the AustinVentures StudioTheatre and the Armstrong/Connelly Studio.

A very significant piece of progress—the exterior of the west side is finished out. Visually, this is a breakthrough step—because now you can see what the exterior finish of the building looks like.

I wanted to include this one just to show how much a part of the entire neighborhood we’ll be. On Friday, the Austin Fine Arts Festival was setting up all around us, literally right by our door.