Late next month, the Toyota Music Factory, a large entertainment hub in Irving, Texas, with 20 restaurant and entertainment concepts, will have a soft opening for Rayleigh Underground, a 38,000-sf theater with a capacity of 850 and complemented by an overhead 6,000-person concert venue operated by Live Nation.
Named after Lord Rayleigh, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist who first identified acoustics and lightwave scattering, Rayleigh Underground features an 18x50-ft stage with a 36x18-ft Absen 2.9 pitch video wall on the center stage. The venue will also have multiple interactive LED screens throughout, six bars, of which two are VIP; a large ballroom/conferencen space that can accommodate three separate dining areas; and an AV Booth to MC any type of event or performance.
According to Chris Michero, co-founder and design principal with Dallas-based Emblem Interior Design, this project’s interior designer, Rayleigh Underground was created to provide a more intimate space for performers, artists, comedians, and guest speakers, along with a “submissive” Pacific Rim-flavored dining experience for guests.
Venue’s design tells stories
This project has been in the works for several years. The Toyota Music Factory opened in late 2017. A year later, following a resolution of a financial dispute between the city and developer, the Dallas News reported that the hub would add five restaurants and bars, including one called Rayleigh Underground and Violet Room that included a large stage.
Michero explains that Rayleigh Underground’s completion was impeded by several factors.
The project’s original designer “created a lot of issues [with] regard to mechanical, HVAC, space planning, etc.,” he says in an email to BD+C. “There was no real design narrative.” When Emblem was hired to replace that designer, it did a full redesign that touched every finish and material. Emblem created “storied spaces that give the guests a sense of place and a history to the interiors, which makes each experience more memorable.” Michero adds that the size of Rayleigh Underground and the multiple areas within it “tie back to our design narrative.”
Like entering a cave
One of those “narratives” fuses innovative technology with the raw aesthetic of an excavated underground amphitheater. StoneCoat’s limestone plaster cladding creates interior and exterior surfaces that project the look and feel of authentic rock, stone, and stucco.
“We wanted to create a unique and memorable guest experience,” said Kim Forsythe, owner of Restaurant Expert Management, Rayleigh Underground’s client, in a prepared statement.
Other members of Rayleigh Underground’s building team include PGP Construction (GC), Herb Goodman (CM and owner’s rep), Mark Hopper (architect), Brookfield Properties Development (the Toyota Music Factory landlord), GME (electrical), EPS (plumbing), Kosel (HVAC and controls), Hatfield (acoustical drywall assemblies), Carpentry Associates (millwork and metalwork for the bars), AllPro (A/V), Highland (fire suppression), Mitec (fire and property protection), Stonehill Industries (painting), Sigma Signs (signage), and CMC Network Solutions (data and low voltage).
Rayleigh Underground is scheduled to open officially in December.
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
Firehouse converted to hip hot property
Sound the alarm! A 9,000-sf former firehouse is being converted into a new multipurpose space for ZUMIX, a nonprofit music and arts organization that's partnering on the project with Landmark Structures of Woburn, Mass., and the East Boston Community Development Corporation. The $2 million renovation of the 1920s structure, known as Engine Company 40 Firehouse, includes a complete gut job to ma...
| Aug 11, 2010
Project is music to school's ears
Florida Gulf Coast University is building a $7.55 million Fine Arts Building on its campus near Ft. Myers, Fla. The 25,000-sf building—the first project in the school's plan for an entire music complex—will house the music program of the College of Arts and Sciences. The facility includes a 200-seat recital hall, rehearsal hall, music labs, studio rooms, and administration offices.
| Aug 11, 2010
Theater offers spectacular views inside and out
A 500-seat proscenium theater sits at the heart of the 35,000-sf Performing Arts Pavilion at the Jackson Hole Center for the Arts. The entertainment and cultural facility, designed by Stephen Dynia Architects, Jackson Hole, Wyo., also houses glass-walled rehearsal rooms that offer passersby views of the activity going on inside and multifunction lobby with views of Snow King Mountain.
| Aug 11, 2010
Broadway-style theater headed to Kentucky
One of Kentucky's largest performing arts venues should open in 2011—that's when construction is expected to wrap up on Eastern Kentucky University's Business & Technology Center for Performing Arts. The 93,000-sf Broadway-caliber theater will seat 2,000 audience members and have a 60×24-foot stage proscenium and a fly loft.
| Aug 11, 2010
Dallas Center for the Performing Arts opens
The Dallas Center for the Performing Arts, a new multi-venue center for music, opera, theater, and dance, will open this month, completing the 25-year vision of the Dallas Arts District. Foster + Partners, Rem Koolhaas, Joshua Prince-Ramus, and Skidmore Owings & Merrill are among the architecture firms involved in the development, which includes four venues unified by a 10-acre park.
| Aug 11, 2010
Modest recession for education construction
Construction spending for education expanded modestly but steadily through March, while at the same time growth for other institutional construction had stalled earlier in 2009. Education spending is now at or near the peak for this building cycle. The value of education starts is off 9% year-to-date compared to 2008.
| Aug 11, 2010
Opening night close for Kent State performing arts center
The curtain opens on the Tuscarawas Performing Arts Center at Kent State University in early 2010, giving the New Philadelphia, Ohio, school a 1,100-seat multipurpose theater. The team of Legat & Kingscott of Columbus, Ohio, and Schorr Architects of Dublin, Ohio, designed the 50,000-sf facility with a curving metal and glass façade to create a sense of movement and activity.
| Aug 11, 2010
Curtain rises on Broadway's first green theater
The Durst Organization and Bank of America have opened New York's first LEED-certified theater, the 1,055-seat Henry Miller's Theatre. Located inside the new 55-story Bank of America Tower at One Bryant Park, the 50,000-sf theater is located behind the preserved and restored neo-Georgian façade of the original 1918 theater.
| Aug 11, 2010
Restoration gives new life to New Formalism icon
The $30 million upgrade, restoration, and expansion of the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles was completed by the team of Rios Clementi Hale Studios (architect), Harley Ellis Devereaux (executive architect/MEP), KPFF (structural engineer), and Taisei Construction (GC). Work on the Welton Becket-designed 1967 complex included an overhaul of the auditorium, lighting, and acoustics.
| Aug 11, 2010
Gold Award: Eisenhower Theater, Washington, D.C.
The Eisenhower Theater in the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., opened in 1971. By the turn of the century, after three-plus decades of heavy use, the 1,142-seat box-within-a-box playhouse on the Potomac was starting to show its age. Poor lighting and tired, worn finishes created a gloomy atmosphere.
