What $22.5 Million Bought: Gilmer's New Performing Arts Center Opens Its First School Year

Gilmer County Schools opened the 2026-27 year on Monday, Aug. 3, and for the district's roughly 4,000 students it is the first year with the Gilmer Performing Arts Center standing next door to Gilmer High School. The building cost $22.5 million. Not a dime of it came from a property tax increase.

It was paid for through the 2020 and 2025 Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, the penny added to every taxable purchase rung up in Gilmer County. Buy groceries in East Ellijay, gas up on Highway 515, pick up paint downtown, and you helped build it.

What is actually in the building

The centerpiece is a 950-seat auditorium. Around it sit classrooms for Gilmer High's fine arts programs and space for the Gilmer College & Career Academy, which shared the same construction project. Bid documents for the job list it as one combined build: the high school performing arts center and career academy together.

For anyone who has sat on a folding chair at a Gilmer band concert, or watched a chorus performance compete with gym acoustics and squeaking sneakers, the change is the point. Decades of Gilmer band, chorus and drama performances happened in gyms and older rooms that were never built for sound. That era is over.

One thing worth clearing up: this is a school district facility on the high school campus. It is not the Gilmer Arts Playhouse on Dalton Street, which is a separate downtown venue run by Gilmer Arts.

The career academy side

The classroom half of the project ties into a program that got its state funding two years ago. In May 2024, the State Board of the Technical College System of Georgia approved more than $3 million to establish the Gilmer College & Career Academy, a partnership between Gilmer County Schools and Chattahoochee Technical College. It became the 59th college and career academy in Georgia.

Superintendent Dr. Brian Ridley said at the time the district was glad to work with Chattahoochee Tech to connect more students to real-world learning that leads to a career. Speaking about the arts center this week, Ridley described it as a project that had been in the works for a few years. Staff got the first look at scale: the district held its start-of-year staff event inside the new center.

Where the rest of the penny goes

The 2025 ESPLOST is a 1% sales tax authorized to raise up to $70 million. The performing arts center is one line on a longer list. According to state reporting, the approved 2025 project list also covers:

• Major renovation, construction and equipment at Ellijay Elementary School
• Improvements and equipment for the Gilmer College & Career Academy, including agricultural facilities and greenhouses
• Athletic additions including the GHS gym, a marching band practice facility, softball facilities and a wrestling facility
• Curriculum materials and technology: textbooks, lab equipment, band instruments, computers, servers and wireless equipment

Some of that is already moving. The district has run bids for a new auxiliary gym at Gilmer High and for a band and agriculture addition at Clear Creek Middle School.

Next up: a new PK-5 school

The biggest item still ahead is a new PK-5 school, which the district has advertised for bids under project number 2026-01. Gilmer County Schools posts its open bids and RFPs publicly, and that is the place to watch for the award and the construction schedule. The district has not announced an opening date for the new elementary building.

Families who want to see the performing arts center from the inside will most likely get their chance the ordinary way, on a concert or play night this fall. Fine arts and athletic schedules for the year run through the individual schools and the Gilmer County Schools site.

Got a student in band, chorus, drama or a career pathway this year? Tell us what the new building is like from a parent's seat. Join the conversation in our Community Forum, and read more education stories and local government coverage at Ellijay Georgia Community Website.

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