CNU tops out new fine arts center

Officials at Christopher Newport University celebrated Tuesday afternoon the topping out — when the steel beam that marks the highest point in a structure is laid — of a new $57.6 million fine arts center on campus. The building, an addition to the Ferguson Center for the Arts, will include gallery spaces, studios and offices for fine arts programs on campus. It’ll also eventually house the Peninsula Fine Arts Center, currently in a building on the Mariners’ Museum campus nearby. Construction on the addition is expected to finish up in early 2021.

Left: Christopher Newport University president Paul Trible talks about the new Fine Arts Center as they prepare to attach the final piece of steel to the structure. Right: The final piece of structural steel is hoisted into place. Construction on the building is scheduled to be complete in early 2021.

On Tuesday, CNU student Emily McGinness was among many who signed a piece of steel that would be the last placed on a structure that will become the Peninsula Fine Arts Center.