Noise Abatement, or: Solving the Ruckus Over Annette Strauss Artist Square

Speaking of band shells, really, Fair Park, anyone? Anyone?

Back in the spring, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts realized they might have a wee bit of a problem, what with the DSO playing inside the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center and the DCPA building the outdoor Annette Strauss Artist Square band shell mere feet away. The DSO worried about noise from the adjoining venue; the DCPA said, Not a problem, only it kinda coulda been. Which is why City Manager Mary Suhm, the DCPA and the DSO went out and got three “expert acousticians” to bring the noise before it became deafening. (See what I did there?)

The result: The Annette Strauss Artist Square Sound Mitigation Plan, which will be discussed during the city council’s morning briefing. They could either modify the Annette Strauss (by doing things like building “barrier walls intended to reduce low-frequency subwoofer sound”) at an added cost of $6.16 million; or they could change the sound system (“Distributed sound system with directional speakers to serve front audience and secondary speakers to serve audience in back”), which may cost a little; or they could just schedule events so one venue’s silent when the other’s in use. How likely is Option No. 1? Probably not as likely as some combination of Options No. 2 and 3. Just guessing. –Robert Wilonsky