HOWARD COUNTY, MD — Plans for a new arts and cultural center located in downtown Columbia have been advanced by county officials.
Originally introduced in the 2010 Downtown Columbia Plan, the $68 million new cultural center will break ground in early 2025 and be built on the current site of Toby’s Dinner Theater, which will be demolished. A housing portion of the center, called Artists Flats, will offer 174 residential units across several mixed-income price points, officials noted.
Plans for the center also include a new 340-seat dinner theater to support the existing Toby’s Dinner Theatre operation, which will be transferred to the nonprofit Columbia Center for Theatrical Arts to run shows and provide community programs. The dinner theater component of the project should wrap up by spring 2026. The center also will include a 200-seat Children’s Theatre ran by CCTA and a 200-seat Blackbox Theater ran by the Howard County Arts Council. These two theaters are expected to be complete by the spring of 2028, officials said.
Mark Minnick, associate producer of Toby’s Dinner Theater, expressed gratitude for the inclusion of Toby Orenstein into the plans.
“Realizing how essential the arts are to a vibrant and inclusive community, visionary developer James Rouse invited Toby Orenstein to the new city of Columbia, Maryland, to represent theatrical arts and she has done so strongly and proudly for over 50 years. Finally, after a lot of passionate hard work, Toby’s school, The Columbia Center for Theatrical Arts, will now have a permanent home alongside a brand-new state-of-the-art Toby’s Dinner Theatre located in The New Cultural Center,” Minnick said.
The project also will include a 1,600-square-foot public arts gallery curated by the Howard County Arts Council, an 800-square-foot dance studio managed by CCTA and nearly 7,000 square feet of classroom space for arts education also organized by CCTA. All building components are anticipated to wrap up by spring of 2028.
“The new cultural center will be an exciting epicenter for dynamic visual and performing arts, not only for downtown Columbia but throughout our county and region,” said Howard County Executive Calvin Ball. “Building upon the legacy of Toby’s Dinner Theatre, this new public amenity will bring together arts, culture, education and recreation opportunities for residents of all incomes and ages. Furthermore, the inclusion of critical workforce housing in this project will add to downtown Columbia’s appeal as a place where people of all incomes can live, work, play, grow and thrive.”
The new cultural center project also will include 174 new residential units in downtown Columbia across several mixed-income price points. The Columbia Downtown Housing Corporation will be investing $3.5 million in the project to help provide 87 units of affordable housing.
Below is a Google map of where the new center will be located.