Center will encompass 4,000 square feet, seven private studios
Published in the January 6 – 19, 2016 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Marty Cheek
Photo by Marty Cheek
Michelle Moyer, owner of The Music in Motion in Morgan Hill, in front of the soon-to-open Performing Arts Studios and center.
Back in summer, Michelle Moyer felt a bit of anxiety when she suddenly learned she and other instructors needed to soon leave The Music Tree in Morgan Hill’s Downtown Mall where they made their livelihood giving children music and singing lessons. She created a core of other music teachers to find a new location. The team received a conditional use permit from the city on Dec. 8, allowing them to move into the iconic Seagull Building.
Located at 15105 Concord Circle, the two-story Spanish Mission-style structure is a place where Moyer and her team want to transform 4,000-square-feet of floor space into a premiere performing arts center for the South Valley. The upstairs areas has a series of small studio rooms with glass doors that will be perfect for instructors giving individual music lessons. Carpet will be ripped out of a spacious 1,200-feet hall and wood floors and a mirror wall will be installed for dancing lessons as well as recitals and fundraising events to help finance the center.
“We have seven private studios here and the goal is to have them all full, which I don’t think will be difficult,” Moyer said. “I already have three full-time teachers in here and some part-time. And then I’ve got the dance studio so I’m hoping to do theater classes and Pilates dance classes, my Music Together classes. It’ll be full service.”
On Saturday Dec. 12, the teachers launched their new enterprise with a free concert of children and adults performing Christmas music and dancing in the Seagull Building’s downstairs lobby. The spacious area has a large fountain as the focus, and spectators were able to enjoy the various performances from the upstairs balcony.
Photo by Marty Cheek
Music in Motion singers perform in the lobby of a new performing arts center in Morgan Hill.
Moyer is owner of The Music in Motion in Morgan Hill which teaches children from babies to teens the joy of music. She had been based in the Downtown Mall for several years. The building was recently purchased from the city of Morgan Hill by entrepreneur Frank Leal who will tear it down and construct a boutique hotel and catering kitchen at the location.
When she realized her days at the downtown site were coming to a close, she went to Smith Commercial Management, which showed her several locations in Morgan Hill. When Moyer saw the Seagull Building, she saw the potential of creating something more than just a place to instruct music. She saw a place to create a thriving performing arts community for the entire South Valley.
There was some initial reluctance among some of the music instructors. But Moyer saw the potential of the location being closer to San Martin and Gilroy as well as the abundant parking spaces surrounding the Seagull Building.
“Some of the teachers said, ‘Let’s stay downtown,’ and I said, ‘It’s just going to be a mess for the next couple of years.’ We don’t need to be downtown. Let’s think outside the box,’” she said. “This is ideal because you’ve got Gilroy and you’ve got Morgan Hill and it’s kind of in between. It’s more centrally located.”
After the music instructors agreed to take a chance on the Seagull Building, Moyer met owner Don Ekhoff who listened to her ideas for creating a combined instructional studio center and performing arts center in the location. Moyer signed a long-term lease agreement with him.
“Don is an amazing inventor,” she said. “He and his wife supported the opera back in Idaho and so he’s welcoming to the idea of bringing music and the arts to the building for the public to enjoy. When I came to look at his building, he was really excited and wants to help out. He’s definitely been a supporter and helped come up with ideas and strategies for sponsorship.”
Currently, the Seagull Building has several offices used by local businesses. Over time as the renters move out, the various rooms might be used for more music instruction studio space as well other arts education services such as acting, comedy improv, painting and photography, Moyer said. Other ideas include holding Jazzercise exercise sessions in the dance studio and special performing arts camps for kids during the summer break from school. Guitar ensembles and other types of private music concert groups can also rent the facility to perform for audiences, she said.
Perhaps in the future to add value to the local arts, Moyer said, the center might include a professional-level recording studio and even a green-screen video-recording room for making short films or for corporate presentations.
One idea Moyer has played with is to turn one of the downstairs office spaces into a small movie theater to showcase the cinematic arts, perhaps presenting independent films to the public as well as doing mini-film festivals. Eventually, Moyer would like to meet with educational organizations such as Gavilan Community College and the Morgan Hill Unified School District and discuss finding ways to partner together and build up the Seagull Building’s potential for the spreading the local creation of the arts among young people.
“The arts are so important to our society and for our community,” she said. “Don Ekhoff said he would love for this to be one day an entire performing arts building. All the synergy of all the spaces can go together, and that this building turns into a performing arts place, which is kind of a cool idea.”
To help the students get the books and band instruments and any other music accessories they need, Moyer has arranged with San Jose-based Music Village to install a satellite store showroom in one of the studio rooms.
“The city has said that we can have retail so long as it’s to provide the necessary equipment for our students,” she said. “One of the teachers’ concerns was how do we get piano books. How do we get things that we had at The Music Tree? And I just said, ‘Why don’t you order it on Amazon and sell it and mark it up because you know the things you need for your clients.’ But I think they really wanted that showroom piece.”
Moyer is currently looking for individuals who might be interested in serving on a governing board for the center. Several of the core teachers will be on the board, but she would like to see a diversity of local citizens to represent other performing arts organizations such as the South Valley Symphony and the South Valley Civic Theatre nonprofit groups.
“We want to be able to bring different things together, people from different entities,” she said.
The dance room will be available for rent for people and organizations who might need to have a large space for a birthday or anniversary party or a group fundraising effort, Moyer said. The new performing arts center is also seeking sponsorships and donations to help develop it for the benefit of the South Valley community.
One thing Moyer said she would like to have someone donate for the dance room is a baby grand piano in good condition to play during dance recitals. She’s also hoping someone might step up and donate an interactive white board for instructors to use in teaching music and dance. The performing arts center is also seeking sponsors willing to contribute from $500 to $10,000, with the higher contributors getting studio rooms named after them or their business.
As she gave a tour of the building, Moyer smiled with enthusiasm for the promise of its potential to bring Morgan Hill and the South Valley region a higher quality of visual and performing arts.
“This is a benefit to our community because parents can bring their kids for multiple lessons at one time,” she said.
