Karla Hernandez/THE RIDER
The lease between UTRGV and Texas Southmost College has officially come to an end, with today being its last day.
As the Vaquero’s art students move out of the Rusteberg Hall building, they move into their new home Brownsville Visual Arts Complex. The building is located at 2400 E. Van Buren St. in Brownsville.
As reported by The Rider on Sept. 22, 2025, “UT System Board of Regents approved $39 million for repairs and renovations to the former Longoria Elementary School property.”
Jeffrey Ward, dean of the College of Fine Arts, in an Aug. 20 interview with The Rider, said the program has started moving in furniture and equipment on Aug. 19 to the Brownsville Visual Arts Complex.
Ward said the School of Art and Design and School of Music program has finalized today the lease with TSC and stop renting the TSC Performing Arts Center.
Karla Hernandez/THE RIDER
“The daily cost to rent TSC auditorium is $3,500, and I believe that’s for an eight-hour period…we also have to pay TSC staff, and that is roughly $1,500,” he said.
Ward said the move-out process is going “pretty well”, with the music program already completing their move-out by Aug. 20.
“[We’re] in the last, it’s probably been the last six weeks,” Ward said. “We have a portable on the edge of campus [in Brownsville] that we’re using as music storage, and we’re out of TSC on the music side. …the art side is happening right now, and the reason why that has been we have been waiting till now because we’re waiting, we need the green light from the contractor.”
Angel Reyna, junior music education for piano, said it is unfortunate that the College of Fine Arts is leaving TSC.
“TSC is our Performing Arts Center, it’s really beautiful,” Reyna said. “We have to subsidize it and use the multi-purpose room here in the music department. [School of Art and Design] are going to go into a new building, just trying to focus on art, it is good.”
As reported by The Rider on March 30, the TSC Recreation Center will be the only building shared by UTRGV and TSC in Brownsville.
