(Telegraph photo by DEAN SHALHOUP) The stage area of the new Nashua Center for the Arts building is beginning to take shape amid the scaffolding that crews are currently using. In background at right is the West Pearl Street entrance to the building.

NASHUA – The years have become months, and the months are soon to become weeks on the timeline of the closely-watched project that, when completed, will grace Nashua’s downtown with a state-of-the-art performance venue teeming with amenities aimed at creating a memorable experience for not only visitors and guests but the actors and performers who add the venue to their tour.

From the first-floor stars’ dressing rooms and lounge, and the similar, somewhat larger communal space for group performers, such as dancers or backup bands, on the second floor, to a third-floor VIP room with direct access to a terrace overlooking Main Street and the historic Masonic Lodge rooms and a retracting seat system that can increase capacity from 750 to 1,000 when desired, the plans for the four-story Nashua Center for the Arts appears to have checked all the boxes.

Although no firm date has been selected as yet, officials have projected a December opening, barring any significant unexpected developments.

Most of the rooms, lounge areas, hallways and stairways, plus the centrally-located elevator shaft, have been defined by framing, and in some cases walls have been installed and are awaiting the finishing touches.

Looking down and across the interior toward the rear of the building from the third-floor terrace area, a visitor gets a good look at the space where the 753 seats will soon be installed on both the ground level and the balcony.

(Telegraph photo by DEAN SHALHOUP) The view from the terrace level on the third floor of the new Nashua Center for the Arts building overlooks Main Street.

Glen Dugas, the project superintendent for Bedford-based Harvey Construction, the general contractor, pointed out a set of framework where the stage, and its backgrounds, are gradually taking shape.

Dugas, accompanied by Rich Lannan, president of Nashua Community Arts, the fundraising arm of the center, and Jake Crumb, of Spectacle Live, the firm that will run the center’s day-to-day operations, including marketing, operating the box office and food and beverage concessions and booking the performers, told a visitor that the plans call for restoring as many of the original windows and framing as possible, and likewise keep intact the exposed interior brickwork.

The estimated $25 million project got underway “at just the right time,” Lannan said in addressing members and guests at the Greater Nashua Chamber of Commerce’s Eminance Awards program in May.

Had work begun six months later, Lannan said, it almost certainly would have been interrupted by the pandemic. As it was, the pandemic was still hanging around, albeit in a diminished state, at the start of the project, but it will “be very close to being finished on time and on budget,” he added.

As the Nashua Center for the Arts gradually takes shape physically, plenty of people are working behind the scenes on marketing initiatives such as soliciting donations and keeping people up to date on the progress.

(Telegraph photo by DEAN SHALHOUP) Project superintendent Glen Dugas, of Harvey Construction, on a tour last week of the Nashua Center for the Arts, which is projected to open in December.

One of the more popular fundraisers is the “Name A Seat Campaign,” which, for a donation of $1,000 for an orchestra level, parterre box or front balcony seat or $500 for a rear balcony seat, offers folks the opportunity to have a small plaque bearing the name of a person, a couple, a family, a business or organization affixed to a seat “for the life of the seat,” according to the notice.

For more information on ways to donate, go to www.nashuacommunityarts.org/donate.

For general donations, pledges and information on naming rights, contact info@nashuacommunityarts.org, or contact fundraising chairwoman Marylou Blaisdell at donations@nashuacommunityarts.org.

For background and more information on Spectacle Live, go to spectaclelive.com/events/nashua-center-for-the-arts.

Dean Shalhoup may be reached at 594-1256 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.

(Telegraph photo by DEAN SHALHOUP) Project superintendent Glen Dugas, of Harvey Construction, left, and Jake Crumb, of Spectacle Live, the firm that will operate the Nashua Center for the Arts, on a tour last week of the building, which is projected to open in December.