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Donnamy Steele

After many renovations, the Church Street Cultural Arts Center’s newest project is complete. The Andalusia Ballet is celebrating the work and donations put into the building by the Andalusia community by hosting a ribbon cutting and performance on Saturday. Meryane Murphy said the event will begin at 6 p.m. and will consist of a ribbon cutting, musical performance, and a ballet performance.

“We are going to do a ribbon cutting at 6 on the front steps of the old church street school, which is now the church street cultural arts center,” Murphy said. “Evans Barnes will have their band play after the ribbon cutting and before the performance. At 7:30 will be the free performance, open to anyone who wants to come. It’s a short, 30 minute performance by our dancers.”

The plan for the newly renovated third floor to the Church Street Cultural Arts Center began almost one year ago, Murphy said. The first renovation for the building took place nearly 10 years before.

“About a year ago we began a second renovation project on the building for the top floor and it is complete,” Murphy said. “We are thanking the donors for the project and we are thanking them for that.”

The additional 9,000 square feet added to the center allows for more room for classes and creativity to be used for the community, Murphy said.

“There’s another large studio, there’s an exercise or fitness center room, and there’s another room with vinyl floor for arts and crafts activities,” Murphy said. “We have another room we are calling the library, and there’s the music room. We are excited about the new bathrooms as well.”

Back in the early 2000s, the Andalusia Ballet Association started looking into the Cultural Arts Center when the school was to be vacated, Murphy said. They worked with the city to bring the center to the community, Murphy said. “The ballet is the main tenant and there are many classes and all different types of things are offered there,” Murphy said. “We have a lady who offers music classes and we hope to have more when things get more freer after covid. We’ve had different groups and individuals interested and they would just need to contact the ballet to use the building to see if it would work for their purposes.”

People are welcome to come by, throw on a blanket if it’s pretty and enjoy the show, Murphy said. Murphy said she hopes the community will come together to enjoy the event on Saturday and bring some recognition to what the Andalusia Ballet has done in the area.

“We just hope that people will come and enjoy a lovely evening,” Murphy said. “I hope to celebrate what the ballet has done, not just to renovate the building, but also to elevate that part of Andalusia and the community and highlight what the ballet association does.”