Smith Center Receives $100 Million 'Challenge' Grant

The Smith Center for the Performing Arts has received a $100 million "challenge" grant from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation to provide funding for a second hall and education center once fundraising is completed for the main 2,050 seat performance hall.

The Reynolds Foundation "challenge" gift means that construction of the entire complex can occur simultaneously, rather than in two phases as originally planned.

As originally conceived, the Smith Center would have been built in two phases.  Phase 1 features a magnificent 2,050 seat performance hall which will be the new home of the Las Vegas Philharmonic and touring Broadway shows, among others.  Phase II of the complex includes a 650-seat proscenium theater, which will be home of the Nevada Ballet Theatre as well as a cabaret theater, studio theater and the education and community outreach complex.

In order for the grant to be completed, Smith Center officials must raise an additional $75 million by next summer.

The Smith Center Challenge Grant is the single largest philanthropic gift in state history, surpassing the foundation's initial grant to the Smith Center of $50 million in 2005, which created an operating endowment for the center.

The Smith Center is a public/private partnership destined to become the centerpiece to the development of 61 acres of prime downtown land. Groundbreaking for the Smith Center is planned for late in 2008 with a projected opening in 2011.

The Donald W. Reynolds Foundation is a national philanthropic organization founded in 1954 by the late media entrepreneur for whom it is named. Headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada, it is one of the largest private foundations in the United States.