Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

Texas State University Breaks Ground on Media Building

  • By Matt Jones
  • 08/23/21

Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas, broke ground last week on a new media building. Live Oak Hall will serve students and faculty from the College of Fine Arts and Communication and feature amenities like a film soundstage, a TV studio, a recording mix classroom, an editing lab, a foley room for sound effects, and administrative offices and classrooms. The facility comes with an estimated cost of $10 million and is scheduled to open its doors in time for the fall 2022 semester.

University officials said that the new building comes as the Department of Theater and Dance continues to grow; theatre enrollment has grown by 53% across the last five years, and the university’s film concentration is also picking up steam. Live Oak Hall will also provide students from the School of Journalism and Mass Communication with their own television studio for the first time. Its media lab and classroom space will facilitate television news courses, and the new studio and control room will play home to the “Bobcat Update,” the university newscast.

Other amenities include greenscreen technology for the soundstage and television studio; a sound recording classroom with surround-sound capabilities and an isolation sound recording booth; and broadband fiber for live broadcast streaming capabilities. Students will also use the studio to produce sports and interview programs.

“San Marcos is situated between Austin and San Antonio, two cities with vibrant independent film communities where film graduates are in demand,” said the university in a news release. “With the advent of digital streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+ and Hulu, the global demand for graduates with both creative and technical skills will continue to rise, and Texas State is uniquely situated to create a program that feeds both the curricular demand of students and the industry that will hire them.”

The 10,291-square-foot facility was designed by project architects the Lawrence Group, which has offices in Austin and New York and specializes in higher education and media/broadcast studios.

About the Author

Matt Jones is senior editor of Spaces4Learning. He can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • Illinois State University Breaks Ground on College of Fine Arts Transformation

    Illinois State University in Normal, Ill., recently held a groundbreaking ceremony for the Wonsook Kim College of Fine Arts transformation project, according to university news. The series of new constructions and renovations will upgrade spaces in Centennial East, the Center for the Visual Arts, and the Center for the Performing Arts, as well as replace the existing Centennial West facility with a new Commons Building.

  • Hawaii Elementary School Breaks Ground on New Classroom Building

    Kealakehe Elementary School in Kailua, Hawaii, recently began construction on a new, $16-million classroom building for its campus, according to a news release. The 13,000-square-foot building will stand two stories and connect the existing upper and lower campuses.

  • Pitzer College

    Designing for Change in Higher Ed Learning Environments

    Higher education will continue to evolve, and learning environments must evolve with it. By prioritizing adaptable infrastructure, thoughtful reuse, strong energy performance, and wellness-centered design, campuses can create spaces that support learning today while remaining flexible for the future.

  • DFW-Area District Opens New Replacement Middle School

    The Eagle Mountain-Saginaw Independent School District near Fort Worth, Texas, recently held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new replacement middle school campus, according to a news release. The new facility for Wayside Middle School, originally established in 1964, was built on the site of the former district administration building and funded through Bond Proposition A in 2023.