Groundbreaking for the Ralph R. Bailey Concert Hall, a $5.6 million performing arts facility, was on November 4, 1976. The facility was envisioned as a showplace center for cultural arts in western Broward County.

The hall was named in honor of Mr. Bailey, a Hallandale engineer and real estate investor who had once owned the property on which the Golden Isles neighborhood was built. He sold it to developers in 1955. When Bailey died in 1961 he had no heirs to pass his assets on to, so he bequeathed 80 percent of his estate to projects supporting community improvement. The projects were to be selected by the personal representative of his estate, who also died shortly thereafter. The task of personal representative fell to Broward attorney James D. Camp Jr., who had never met Mr. Bailey, but who sought out friends of Mr. Bailey to see what selections he might have made.

In addition to the funds for the construction of Bailey Hall, Mr. Bailey’s estate also benefited the Museum of Art and a scholarship fund was created in his name, supporting law students from Broward County studying at the University of Florida’s law school, along with other worthy causes.

The Bailey estate’s first donation to Broward Community College was $525,000, followed by a later donation of $475,000 to provide seed money for the college for the 1,201-seat performing arts center. The Bailey estate’s contribution was matched with $2 million from the Community Educational Facilities Act of 1975, sponsored by Gov. Graham. Other funds came from the college and individual donors.

Broward Community College’s third president, A. Hugh Adams, envisioned Bailey Hall as a showplace facility which would fill a huge cultural void in Broward County, particularly the rapidly growing southwest part of the county. Before the 1970s, Broward’s leading cultural arts facilities were in Fort Lauderdale: War Memorial Auditorium, with 2,100 seats, opened in 1950 and by 1970 was already looking dowdy. Just down Sandy Nininger Drive in Holiday Park was Parker Playhouse, at 1,167 seats a smaller performance venue, but a more opulent facility. Parker Playhouse opened on February 6, 1967.

In addition to his aspirations for Bailey Hall as a premier cultural performance facility, President Adams also envisioned it as a superb educational center for the arts and a destination for entertainment and culture lovers from the tri-county area.

Four dignitaries turned the earth at the groundbreaking ceremonies: Graham, honorary college trustee James D. Camp, Jr.; Florida Education Commissioner Ralph Turlington and Broward attorney Sheldon Schlesinger, who also served as chairman of the Broward Community College District Board of Trustees.

The Fort Lauderdale architectural firm of William G. Crawford and Associates, who also designed the Community College of Broward College’s first seven buildings on Central, who handled the transition of the Downtown Center from a bank to an education complex, designed the Sea Ranch Lakes shopping center, and many of Broward County’s public schools, designed Bailey Hall.    

The center’s original anticipated completion date was September 28, 1978, but along the way, nearly anything that could go wrong did. Iron workers and truckers struck, rain delayed construction and construction materials were in short supply. After the center opened, problems continued; cracks appeared and leaks opened up. The problems occurred, the Miami Herald said, because of the center’s grand size and scope. :”Few universities, let alone community colleges, can boast of such a facility,” wrote the Herald’s Colleen Gallagher.

The hall opened a year and a half later than anticipated, with a dedication gala on October 13, 1979. Gov. Bob Graham was the guest of honor for the ceremony; the evening’s entertainment was a star-spangled selection of popular and patriotic music.

The community did embrace Bailey Hall and up to the point the Broward Center for the Performing Arts opened in February 1991, Bailey Hall reigned supreme. 

Inside Bailey Hall are the E. Virginia Leyland Curren Room and the James P. Howard Playbill Alley. The ashes of Mr. Howard, who worked in Bailey Hall as an employee and a volunteer after retirement, are stitched securely high into the drapery at Bailey Hall, and are not visible from the audience area, or on the stage. Mrs. Curren’s family donated $80,000 toward construction of the center.

In 1981, the college received a $100,000 donation from the estate of Betty J. McMillion, an original member of the faculty. The donation, made in memory of her parents, purchased the world’s largest completely portable pipe and electronic organ, custom designed for Bailey Hall. The organ has more than 300 pipes and more than 40 speakers placed within the hall. The organ remains in Bailey Hall to this day.

In the performing arts center’s first five years, more than 600,000 patrons viewed cultural arts programs there. That happened, in large part, because of the exhaustive variety of celebrities, luminaries and literary lions who visited there to entertain.