SAGE PLANS ALBANY ARTS COMPLEX

                  Albany Two-building center will house several
                      college programs, a gallery, reception site

                      By ANDREW BROWNSTEIN Staff writer

                      Sage Colleges unveiled plans for a two-building arts
                      complex Thursday, part of an ambitious campaign of
                      construction and rehabilitation at its Albany and
                      Troy campuses.

                      Officials broke ground on the first phase of the
                      complex, a $5 million brick building to house
                      programs in the studio arts, photography, illustration
                      and Sage's year-old graduate program in visual art
                      therapy.

                      The project moves the arts program out of the
                      cramped building it presently shares with
                      psychology and the campus gym, and into a
                      three-story, 33,000-square-foot center at the heart of
                      the University Heights campus.

                      The first building is scheduled to open for classes in
                      the fall of 2000, and construction on the second unit
                      -- housing programs in graphic and interior design,
                      as well as a new gallery and reception hall -- is
                      expected to begin shortly after. The two buildings
                      will be connected by a second-floor bridge.

                      ``As native Albanians, to envision what is now
                      being formed as an academic community is
                      breathtaking,'' said state Sen. Neil Breslin, one of
                      several local politicians to attend Sage's unveiling.

                      Sage President Jeanne Neff said funding for the first
                      building came from a $7.5 million Industrial
                      Development Authority grant from the city of
                      Albany. The grant's remaining $2.5 million will go
                      toward renovating the main classroom building,
                      nearby Froman Hall. Neff said the money for the
                      second arts building would come entirely from
                      private funds.

                      The groundbreaking comes on the heels of two other
                      recent announcements, a $1 million campus and
                      community bookstore and a $1 million gift for a new
                      campus center in Troy. Sage is also part of the
                      four-campus consortium that recently purchased the
                      New Scotland Avenue armory in Albany with the
                      intention of converting it into a massive bookstore
                      and food court.

                      Hollan Schwartz, a recent graduate of the associates
                      degree program in art at Sage, said the new arts
                      building would be a welcome addition to the
                      campus. Standing near an expressionistic
                      self-portrait that formed part of a ``virtual tour'' of
                      the new building, she explained it took her nearly
                      two days to find room to exhibit her work in the
                      Sage gym.

                      ``I can definitely say this is needed,'' she said. ``The
                      faculty here are phenomenal, but the facility is so
                      small.''

Copyright 1999, Capital Newspapers Division of The Hearst Corporation, Albany, N.Y.