It will be a busy 2025 at Lindsey Wilson College as two buildings will be added to the A.P. White Campus – a residence hall and regional performing arts center.
The two projects, which will be a combined $24 million investment in the campus, will help “transform this college so that it can continue to meet our students’ growing needs,” said Lindsey Wilson President William T. Luckey Jr.
“A big reason we are able to undertake these two major projects is because Lindsey Wilson has never been stronger in its 122-year history,” said Luckey, who noted that the college enrolled more than 4,000 students last fall. “During a time when many colleges and universities are contracting, Lindsey Wilson is expanding. With a record number of students and an outstanding faculty, the timing is right for Lindsey Wilson to add these two important buildings to our campus.”
The residence hall, which will feature apartment-style living, will be ready for the 2026-27 school year. The regional performing arts center, which will include two performance spaces, will also be opened during the 2026-27 school year. Groundbreaking ceremonies for both projects will be held in March.
The three-story residence hall will be built on the east side of campus, near Henry and Mary Ellen Lilly Hall. The 15,100-square-foot building will house a total of 48 students; each floor will have 16 students, lodged in four four-person apartment suites. Each student will enjoy a private room, and every apartment will include a common living space, kitchenette and two private bathrooms.
“It’s going to be the college’s most modern, forward-looking building we have in residence life,” said Vice President for Administration & Finance Mark Coleman. “This building will meet students’ evolving needs and expand the college’s residential offerings.”
A big reason the new residence hall – which will be the college’s 15th residence life area and seventh residence hall – fits that description is because of the work Lindsey Wilson student services officials did with the college’s students. Lindsey Wilson started the 2024-25 school year with more than 940 residential students.
“We are always asking the question in Student Services, ‘How can we best serve our students?’” said Dean of Students Chris Schmidt. “Students told us that they wanted a residential experience that they can customize, and these suite-style apartments will allow them to do that. This new residence hall will allow students to enjoy the best of both worlds. They will share a common living space with their roommates, and they also will have the benefits of a private room.”
The regional performing arts center, which will be located on the corner of Lindsey Wilson Street and Fairgrounds Street on the northwest side of campus, will be the “premiere performing arts center on a Kentucky small college campus,” according to Lindsey Wilson theatre professor Robert Brock.
The performing arts center, which will be about 29,000 square feet, will include a main performance area, a rehearsal space that can double as a black box theatre and hold special events, and a lobby with offices.
“It will be the envy of Kentucky,” said Brock, who has produced more than 130 plays since he started Lindsey Wilson’s theatre program 15 years ago. “I don’t think there will be another theater like this. It is going to be stellar.”
The stellar features of the performing arts center will include a main performance area with a seating capacity of about 270. The main performance area – which will include state-of-the-art lighting and sound systems – will feature a thrust stage with a trap door and vomitorium, a wide corridor that will allow actors to seamlessly enter the performance area.
“The audience will be much closer to the actors and the scenes,” said Brock. “It will be a much richer theatre experience for our audiences.”
The performing arts centers’ rehearsal space can also be used for smaller events and be turned into a black box theatre to accommodate an audience of about 70 patrons.
Behind the scenes, the performing arts center will include a costume shop, scene shops, dressing rooms and a green room. The spacious lobby, which will include administrative and faculty offices, will be accessible via a convenient drop-off drive and adjacent parking lot.
In addition to supporting Lindsey Wilson’s theatre program, the performing arts center will also provide more cultural events on campus, such as concerts, speakers and other special events.
As Brock noted, the performing arts center “will increase opportunities for our students in a very big way.”
“The performing arts center will be such a huge benefit to our theatre students,” said Brock. “They will be able to perform in a wider range and variety of plays, and they will have more experiences with producing plays. When the performing arts center opens, we're going to have a great training facility for technical theater. We’re going to have all the resources our students need to benefit from being part of a robust, well-rounded theatre program.”
