TOLEDO, Ohio — Before opening, the minds behind the Toledo School for the Arts were told they'd succeed downtown "when pigs fly."
Now, the Toledo School for the Arts and "Flying Pigs" are celebrating a 25th anniversary by growing even larger.
The familiar sound of steel drums welcomed guests into a new facility of Toledo School for the Arts on Monday for a celebration of the school's new Maxine & Stuart Frankel Foundation Annex and Community Portal.
The $10 million expansion project aimed to improve the facilities here and make the school an even stronger option for area students.
"The quality of the arts studios, the quality of the academic education continues to grow, and I couldn't be more proud," Martin Porter, the first school director at TSA, said.
The addition now features a black box studio, a barrier-free dance studio, a large art gallery and school store and, most importantly, more learning space for students.
The expanded space allows TSA to increase its total student count to 840 enrolled students.
"I'm a dance major, so it's really important to have a brand new space where it's like a professional grade studio and feels like you're dancing in a studio in New York," TSA senior Justice Heil said.
The Community Portal will also be open for public use for area groups for even more on-site community engagement.
"I think it opens up those possibilities even more to alumni, community members, and future students," Porter said.
The expansion is exciting for a school that some were convinced would fail.
"When the Toledo School for the Arts opened 25 years ago, no one thought it was going to succeed," Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz said.
The event today marked the beginning of TSA's 25th anniversary.
And success here is no longer measured against pigs flying, but the growth from an initial 127 students to more than 700, plus the new life it has helped bring back to the Adams Street corridor.
"In both its educational mission and its role in community development, TSA has been ahead of the curve," Kapszukiewicz said. "It's been a real trailblazer, it's been a real leader."
The new annex and community portal is open to the public to visit during TSA's "First Friday" one-hour open house Friday at 9 a.m.