Digital Media Center Hitches Wagon to Hayride
Published Mar 11, 2008
The district around Shreveport Municipal Auditorium, where Elvis Presley often performed, is the focal point of a $300 million redevelopment plan.
In 1948, the Louisiana Hayride launched a golden era of rockabilly radio performances from Shreveport’s Municipal Auditorium.
After rocketing the careers of Hank Williams, Webb Pierce, Elvis Presley and others into orbit, the Louisiana Hayride faded from view in the 1960s, waiting for the right moment to be rediscovered.
That time is now.
Heritage buffs and civic leaders are banking on a long-term $300 million redevelopment to restore the Municipal Auditorium district to its former glory along the western edge of downtown Shreveport.
A catalyst for the project is the Creative Center for Digital Media. Design work is under way to plan the $15 million center that will leverage higher education resources and build business opportunities on several fronts: music, animation, filmmaking and bioinformatics – the science of developing databases to enhance biological research.
“The easiest way to think about this is that the Louisiana Hayride was successful because they embraced cutting-edge technology,” says Kim Mitchell, a principal at MHSM Architects who is guiding the planning. “For us to now embrace that vision and be as successful, we also have to embrace cutting-edge technology, which is digital media.”
Mitchell says construction could begin within two years and be finished a year later. Two area groups – the Foundation for Artists, Musicians and Entertainers and the Center for Education, Research and Technology – will manage the 60,000-square-foot digital media center.
As many as 200 people are expected to work on technology initiatives at the center, which is viewed as a catalyst for the planned Southern American Music Museum on the same site.
Louisiana’s government has provided $500,000 for planning work, and fund raising efforts are under way to sustain the project. Significantly, an Internet-based TV firm, WhiteBlox, has committed to opening in Shreveport because of the coming digital media center.
“It essentially will be a type of business incubator focused on digital media,” Mitchell says. “We’re still in that transition from an industrial economy to a knowledge economy, so this is pretty key infrastructure to move us in that direction.”
Story by Gary Perilloux
Photo by Wes Aldridge
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