While the Walsh Performing Arts Center is usually known for what goes on inside, a new facade is bringing attention to its outer layers.

The building that houses the PepsiCo Recital Hall is undergoing a facelift that will bring a new porch to the front of the building, said Woody Bruner, the project manager overseeing the changes. 

Bruner said the veranda will be about 10 feet across with space for students to gather. The new face will not add an additional entrance to the building. 

“We think it’ll be a pretty nice place, especially in the afternoon because it’s in the shade,” Bruner said. “It’s not an entrance to the building so it’s not a place that you would disturb or be in the way of traffic.” 

Bruner also said that the facade will serve as a walkway from the front of Walsh to Jarvis hall next door.

While some students are glad to see the changes across campus, many within the TCU School of Music, like senior music education major Josef Sells, said they wished the resources were used differently. 

“We do appreciate the facelift, we appreciate the donation to the building, but we would really like to focus on things inside the building that can help each student,” Sells said. 

Scott Sullivan, the dean of the College of Fine Arts, said in an email that the $2.5 million upgrade is a donor-funded effort. 

“The donor of the Walsh Center [building] in the 1990s did not like the original facade, so he is funding a project to make it look more like the other buildings on campus.”

“Neither music nor the College of Fine Arts sought this change,” Sullivan wrote. 

Bruner said that in the 12 years that he’s worked for TCU, he’s never been able to find any middle ground on how people feel about the building. 

“Folk are either very tolerant of the way it looks and think it’s ok, or they can’t stand it. There’s no in-between,” Bruner said. “It’s gone now, so all that’s history.”

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