The scope of the project is still fuzzy, though Kimmel leaders are taking this moment in time to think big.
"It's a clean slate and everything's up for grabs," said Kimmel facilities vice president George Shaeffer.
Kimmel CEO Anne Ewers said the master plan was nothing less than a rethinking of all the Kimmel's spaces except Verizon Hall and the Perelman Theater. Ideas generated by PennPraxis at a public exercise in April, as well as input gathered from the public in focus groups, will be considered in generating the plan.
The contract for the plan has been awarded to KieranTimberlake Associates, a Philadelphia firm with a national portfolio. "They are going to basically determine what kind of alterations are appropriate for the space, based on our mission," said Ewers, who expects this first phase of the planning to be complete in March or April.
KieranTimberlake was chosen from among seven firms that had been asked to submit proposals, Ewer said.
Authors of the acoustical work have not yet been chosen; three firms have been asked to submit proposals.
"We wanted somebody to offer comments and suggestions on what they think are the deficiencies and how they would remedy the deficiencies, as well as commenting on what Artec found," said Shaeffer.
Actually, the report will be a third opinion. In 2004 Artec Consultants, Verizon's original acoustician, issued a study stating that budget cuts during construction forced concessions that adversely affected the hall's sound. Verizon suffers from a "low level of reverberance" and a "relatively low level of impact of the orchestral sound," the firm said.
Last year another leading acoustician, R. Lawrence Kirkegaard, was engaged by the Kimmel Center for a second opinion.
