Dr. Phillips Center gets a boost (and aims to build a concert hall)

Artist's frendering of the Dr. Phillips Center

Davis Gaines, who’s on the board of the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, forwarded me this email from Richard Russell, who’s in charge of raising the money to get the center built.

Some of it is from the favorable press the center got during last week’s groundbreaking. And some of it is more encouraging to fans of the project — that the center’s proponents are trying now to go ahead and raise the money to build the shell of the concert hall that will complete the project. That would make us fans of classical music, dance and opera very, very happy. Here’s Richard:

Here’s how to help your local arts groups

If you can type, you can vote to help United Arts of Central Florida win one of those big-deal grants — $500,000, to be exact — from Chase Community Giving.

Half a million dollars would go a long way to help Central Florida’s arts groups. So vote now. It’s easy if you just follow these instructions: