Announcement of $2 Million Gift from Charles W. Eisemann 

The City of Richardson today added a new name to the highly successful, public/private collaborative effort known as Galatyn Park Urban Center. 

The name belongs to Charles W. Eisemann, chairman of the board of Chaparral Bancshares, Inc. and Canyon Creek National Bank until its merger with Bank of Texas, and founder, president and chairman of Industrial Relations International, Inc., who has also been an active supporter of the Richardson Symphony. 

At his behest, the Eisemann Foundation Fund of the Communities Foundation of Texas made a $2 million gift to the city’s new performing arts and corporate presentation center, which today was named the Charles W. Eisemann Center for Performing Arts and Corporate Presentations.  Richardson City Manager Bill Keffler, Mayor Gary Slagel, Communities Foundation President Ed Fjordbak, and Galatyn Properties Ltd. President Al Hill, Jr. announced the gift at a press conference at the Center’s construction site in the Telecom Corridor ® this morning. 

“It is a true pleasure to recognize such a highly regarded resident of this community through an association with this outstanding facility,” Keffler said.  “The Eisemann Center will carry on Richardson’s rich tradition of excellence that is evolving with the Galatyn Park Urban Center.” 

Situated purposefully between the new 330-room Renaissance Dallas-Richardson Hotel and Nortel Networks’ four new office buildings at Central Expressway and East Lookout Drive, the Eisemann Center will begin hosting performances and corporate events in May or June of 2002 according to Managing Director Bruce C. MacPherson.  Designed by RTKL Associates, Inc., of Dallas, the building will house two theatres, one with 350 seats and another with 1500 seats, and all the staging and acoustical engineering required for drama, dance and symphonic productions.  It will serve as the performance hall for the Richardson Symphony and main stage for many local arts organizations, MacPherson said.  But the new venue will also attract a broader range of cultural arts from around the world to Richardson, he added. 

Eisemann, who joined the Richardson Symphony board in 1988, now serves on the Symphony’s Strategy Advisory Committee.  He noted, “My wife, Ann, and I like the symphony and we enjoy the arts.  And we like what they bring to the quality of life in Richardson.  We wanted this performance hall to be the very best that it could be.” 

Constructed on land donated to the City of Richardson by The Galatyn Park Corporation, the Eisemann Center is to be funded primarily by the City’s hotel/motel fax fund and adds significantly to the local facilities available for corporate presentations and events.  The lower level includes a banquet and meeting hall, a catering kitchen and an audio/video broadcast center with extensive broadcast infrastructure throughout the building. 

The Eisemann Center will share parking capacity with Nortel Networks, the hotel and the City of Richardson in a program consistent with the mixed use of the development which will also be served by a new DART Light Rail station in 2002. 

MacPherson said additional private contributions will be sought to complete the $30 million Eisemann Center and that several other important naming opportunities remain. 

Eisemann is a member of the boards of Bank of Texas, the Richardson Chamber of Commerce, STARTech’s Stakeholder Advisory Board and is a member of the Technology Business Council. 

Communities Foundation of Texas, with offices at 4605 Live Oak Street in East Dallas, has for nearly 50 years advanced philanthropy in North Texas.  A public charity, its singular mission is to fulfill the philanthropic intentions of its donors to meet the educational, health care, civic, cultural and social service needs of the community.  Operating at the direction of a volunteer board of directors deeply rooted and broadly involved in the community, Communities Foundation of Texas provides its 600 donors with a uniquely efficient and effective program of investments, research and charitable giving.  More than $500 million in charitable grants have been awarded since 1953.  The Eisemanns created the Eisemann Foundation Fund in 1999.