Otis Redding Center for the Arts opens in downtown Macon this weekend

The community gathered Tuesday morning in downtown Macon to celebrate the 15,000-square-foot performing arts center, which is designed to serve young people across Middle Georgia with a passion for music and the arts.

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – The Otis Redding Center for the Arts, a vision that began in 2020, is now a reality. The community gathered Tuesday morning in downtown Macon to celebrate the 15,000-square-foot performing arts center, which is designed to serve young people across Middle Georgia with a passion for music and the arts.

This innovative space features seven creative labs, five private lesson rooms, a state-of-the-art recording studio and an amphitheater, all aimed at nurturing kids’ creativity.

“We just want kids to come in and feel creative and leave out of here different people and more productive members of society,” said Justin Andrews, the grandson of Otis Redding and the Director of Global Initiatives for the Otis Redding Foundation.

Andrews says the Center for the Arts will not only continue Otis Redding’s legacy but will also take it a step further.

“To enrich the lives of a whole new generation of kids coming up through this crazy thing we call life,” he said.

Karla Redding-Andrews, daughter of the legendary singer, spoke passionately about how her father would have felt about the center.

“Oh, Dad would be so proud… he is here,” she said. “You know, he’s here in spirit with us. He’d be so proud.”

Zelma Redding, Otis’s mother, was also in attendance at the celebration. While she did not give a speech, her reaction was telling.

“Proud… she’s just proud to be able to see it and was even more proud, as of last Friday, to see kids in this space,” Redding-Andrews said. “Thirty-six kids from Roberts Academy and Mercer University.”

Private lessons will start next week, and preparations are underway for two summer camps. There are also plans to introduce programming for toddlers and senior citizens later this year.

The grand opening of the Otis Redding Center for the Arts is scheduled for this Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.