Gallo Center for the Arts

Spring 1997

Mayor Dick Lang appoints Marie Gallo to assemble a research team to investigate the feasibility of building a performing arts center.
A research team of about 20 people is assembled.
From the private sector, there are various community and business leaders.
From the public sector, there are representatives from the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors, Modesto City Council, California State University, Stanislaus, Modesto Junior College, Modesto City Schools, and the County Office of Education.
The research team visits the Valley Center for the Performing Arts in Oakland and the Dean Lescher Regional Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek.

October 1997 - The research team hires AMS Planning and Research to conduct a public survey, market analysis, and to obtain information from local arts organizations who would be potential tenants.
February 1998 - The AMS study is completed and finds:

Scheduling conflicts in existing facilities.
Existing facilities are inadequate and/or not equipped for touring productions, big name performers, and even the requirements of local groups, such as the Modesto Symphony and Modesto Performing Arts.
The educational institutions which owned the facilities wants to reclaim them for their intended purpose: the use by their students.
Expansion or renovation of existing high school or college auditoriums is cost-prohibitive and not productive

March 1998 - Stanislaus County and the City of Modesto approves giving $50,000 each toward conducting a feasibility study for a performing arts center.

April 1998 - Mayor Dick Lang, Marie Gallo, Delmar Tonge, Ellen Burns, Modesto Bee writer Walt Williams, and Modesto Bee photographer Bart Ah You travel to Fayetteville, Arkansas, to tour the Walton Arts Center.

The mission of the Gallo Center for the Arts is to enrich the quality of life in the Central Valley by providing an inspirational civic gathering place where regional, national and international cultural activities illuminate, educate and entertain. The Gallo Center for the Arts will celebrate the diversity of the Central Valley by offering an array of affordable cultural opportunities designed to appeal, and be accessible, to all.

The Gallo Center for the Arts will accomplish this mission through programming that:

Provides a venue for the area's leading performing arts organizations
Brings great performances from around the world to the area
Offers motivating arts education programs for youth

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