Pavilion ready to debut its new event center
As construction finishes up on the building near the corner of Lake Robbins and Six Pines drives, the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion is preparing to debut its new House of Blues and event center at the Salt-N-Pepa concert April 22.
The 21,000-square-foot facility is a joint project between the pavilion and The Woodlands Township. The two entities forged an agreement to each pay half of the $5.5 million in building costs and share the use of the building. From March through November, during peak concert season, the pavilion will use the facility for its 6,000-square-foot House of Blues Hospitality Lounge, a bar and restaurant available to ticket holders, as well as have 4,200 square feet of meeting space for sponsorship events and community rentals.
“It’s another amenity
for our guests,” said Jerry MacDonald, president and chief executive officer of the pavilion.
Until now, the House of Blues Lounge has been run out of a 6,000-squarefoot tent, and MacDonald said that the pavilion had considered making a more permanent venue for some time when officials finally sat down with the township to hash out a deal a couple of years ago.
“It was time to upgrade,” MacDonald said. “We wanted a permanent facility to make it nicer.”
The lounge will feature tables, chairs, lounge furniture and high-definition screens displaying what’s happening on the stage, so patrons don’t miss a beat. It will be open an hour before and after each show.
“You can hang out there before the show starts and beat the lines,” MacDonald said.
Ranked first in the world among outdoor amphitheaters for ticket sales last year — selling nearly 400,000 — the pavilion will likely see a great deal of traffic as it hosts nearly 50 concerts and events this season, including acts from Florence and the Machine, Journey, Jimmy Buffett, the Dixie Chicks and Snoop Dogg.
During the winter months, the carpet will roll back and the specially outfitted cement beneath will freeze a layer of water, creating an ice rink.
For 16 years, the township has assembled an 80by-216 foot tent at the corner of Lake Robbins and Six Pines drive, adjacent to the Cinemark Tinseltown movie theater, to house the ice rink during the holiday season. The attraction has drawn hundreds of thousands of skaters — about 50,000 each season — including many visiting from outside of The Woodlands.
But The Woodlands Development Co. owns the property where the tent sat and the prime Town Center location is destined for development at some point. Futhermore, it cost the township about $200,000 to build and take apart the ice rink each year, adding up to millions of dollars in costs over the years. The ice rink in the new building will be roughly the same size as the temporary rink, but with twice the restroom facilities, compared to the portable restrooms at the previous location that would often have long lines.
The Woodlands Township board voted last June to allocate more than $3 million from the economic development fund to enter into the agreement with the pavilion. Per the agreement, the pavilion owns the building and will grant The Woodlands a 30-year lease on the property.