4/23/2020 Project Update Press Release

Sunset Holler, Inc. is proud to announce that it has completed its initial fundraising phase for the Southern Gap Amphitheater Project (“the Amphitheater”).  The Amphitheater will be a first class performance venue sited at Southern Gap that will host live music performances, film screenings, speaking engagements, weddings, sports, and corporate events – all with breathtaking panoramic views of the surrounding peaks and ridgelines. 

The resources from this initial fundraising phase will be utilized to fund the design work for the Amphitheater.  The Board of Sunset Holler is extremely grateful for this funding, which came in through grants from the Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission and The Thompson Charitable Foundation as well as a generous donation from a Buchanan County resident.

Sunset Holler publicly solicited bids to design the Amphitheater and, in response, received a number of impressive proposals from top-notch architecture and design firms with substantial experience with similar projects.  The board ultimately voted to move forward with a design team led by VMDO Architects, based out of Charlottesville, Virginia. VMDO’s design team includes:

·         Terra Tech Engineering from Grundy, Virginia, as the Civil Engineer;

·         Theater Consultants Collaborative from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, as the Theater and A/V consultant;

·         Setty & Associates International from Washington, D.C., as the Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing Engineer;

·         Dunbar Milby Williams Pittman & Vaughan from Richmond, Virginia, as the Structural Engineer;

·         JJM Design from Charlottesville, Virginia, as the Landscape Architect; and

·         Creative Acoustics, LLC from Westport, Connecticut, as the Acoustician.

Sunset Holler is also excited to announce that in September 2019, it added two new members to its Board of Directors: Justice Elizabeth A. McClanahan and J. Brent Justus, Esquire. Justice McClanahan is the current Dean of the Appalachian School of Law in Grundy and is a retired Justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia. Brent Justus is an antitrust lawyer and a partner at McGuireWoods, LLP in Richmond, Virginia. Both are natives of Buchanan County.  The remainder of Sunset Holler’s board is comprised of Buchanan County natives Alex McGlothlin, Colby Raines, and Asher McGlothlin.

Sunset Holler is currently in the initial design phase of the Amphitheater, which is set to be complete by late June 2020. Once this phase is completed, there will be schematic drawings and a site plan for the Amphitheater as well as a construction cost estimate that will be used to raise funds to cover the cost of construction.

Sunset Holler, along with the members of our design team, would like to invite all members of the Buchanan County community, past and present, to attend a virtual public meeting that we will host on May 1st at 7PM on our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/sunsetholler/). This meeting is intended to be an opportunity to reveal the progress that has been made on the design of the Amphitheater and to hear from members of the local community on ideas you might have for how the project can progress moving forward. In the meantime, if you’d like to learn more about the project, head on over to https://www.sunsetholler.com/ for more information.