Omaha Performing Arts opens 'world-class' center focused on arts education
Omaha Performing Arts has officially opened the $108 million Tenaska Center for Arts Engagement, the final piece of its downtown campus and a "world-class" space for arts education.
Stephen Chu, with Ennead Architects, left, and Omaha Performing Arts President Joan Squires talk about the Tenaska Center's Mammel Hall during a tour. Mammel Hall is the building's largest practice and performance space.
A ribbon-cutting was held at the center Thursday, and performing arts-based classes, workshops and camps will soon fill the nearly 100,000-square-foot building located just east of the Holland Center. Along with Steelhouse Omaha to the north, the buildings make up the organization's Dick & Mary Holland Campus.
"We think we have a state-of-the-art venue," Omaha Performing Arts President Joan Squires said during a media tour Wednesday. "It's absolutely glorious. I can't wait to welcome everybody inside."
While construction of the center took about two-and-a-half years, Squires said the space is a result of nearly seven years of planning and reflects the commitment to arts education and community engagement that the organization was founded on.
The Tenaska Center for Arts Engagement is located just east of the Holland Center. "Chameleon" paint on the building's exterior "fins" changes color depending on sunlight, according to architect Stephen Chu.
"It's inspiring young people to experience the arts, it's bringing them together, it's bringing their parents here," she said. "It's really the culmination of everything Omaha Performing Arts has worked for for over 20 years."
The building includes four classrooms, three rehearsal halls, two studios and an event hall, which adds greatly needed space for Omaha Performing Arts, Squires said.
"Now that we serve over 100,000 students, we're at capacity, and we really needed a new center to do it," she said. "It takes our organization and our community to the next level."
While it's a significant addition of space for Omaha Performing Arts, lead architect Stephen Chu of Ennead Architects said the biggest draw of the space is how well-equipped each room is.
"There are other facilities that have many rehearsal halls and classrooms," he said. "Rarely are they designed and built to this standard and to this sense of experience."
The design process included extensive collaboration with the community and performing arts professionals, Chu said.
"Each of these spaces has been highly tuned and designed by the design team to reach a world-class level of performance criteria," he said.
Chu also designed the Holland Center and Steelhouse Omaha. He described the Tenaska Center as more "vertical" than the Holland Center, with its narrower profile across four floors.
Visitors are greeted with a front desk and a tiered seating area on the ground floor. There's also a garden space to the east of the building that serves as a connection to the Gene Leahy Mall, Chu said.
"Untitled (Triple Sphere)" by Eva LeWitt hangs in the Tenaska Center for Arts Engagement's atrium. The sculpture, which is composed of silicone and wooden beads, is a focal piece visitors see as they walk upstairs to the center's classroom and rehearsal spaces.
On the first floor is a lobby area as well as Omaha Performing Arts' administrative offices. A staircase takes visitors to the second-floor atrium, which includes a colorful sculpture composed of silicon and wooden beads by Eva LeWitt flanked by a staircase to the third floor.
The second floor houses the building's largest practice and performance space, Mammel Hall, which features retractable seating and a booth where students can learn the "behind the scenes" skills of sound and lighting, Squires said. The hall has isolated acoustics, which are also integrated throughout the building's other performance and rehearsal spaces.
The center's event space, the largest room in the building, is also located on the second floor. It will be available for rental for things like corporate events and weddings and has its own entrance and a connection into the Holland Center, Squires said.
A large tapestry by Mary Zicafoose, which was dedicated in recognition of Howard Hawks, hangs over the staircase in the event hall vestibule.
The third floor houses most of the classrooms, rehearsal rooms and practice rooms. While the rooms are set back from the exterior walls, large windows allow natural light in.
"These are so different than a lot of rehearsal halls that are in the back of buildings or in basements or in corners," Squires said. "You really feel that you're part of the community as you're participating in the arts here."
A classroom in the Tenaska Center for Arts Engagement. The center's classroom and rehearsal spaces are set back from the exterior walls to allow for sound isolation, but large windows let natural light in.
Outside of the classrooms and rehearsal rooms are spaces with cubbies for students to put their belongings and space for dancers to stretch. There's also a large restroom and locker room area on the third floor.
"The building does really cater to the experience of people, students, children coming into the building, as well as hosting their parents in terms of how they drop them off and having that space downstairs for them to wait in," Chu said.
Chu said transparency was one of the focuses of the building's design, with students able to see from the classrooms and rehearsal spaces out into downtown and people outside able to get a glance of the activities happening inside.
"You can see the activity, the beehive of energy within the spaces, as well as the sense of community connection that it has with downtown and its environment," he said.
The Tenaska Center represents an expansion of Omaha Performing Arts' commitment to being a cultural institution in the heart of downtown Omaha, Chu said.
"I really hope that this really makes a statement about how important culture is to Omaha and how important culture is to downtowns of the country," he said. "It is an essential piece, and it's an economic piece and it also is a piece that really just brings people together."
Related
The Tenaska Center for Arts Engagement in Omaha opened to the public on Thursday, March 19, 2026.
