Shubert Center being renamed for Cowles'

The Minnesota Shubert Center for Performing Arts in downtown Minneapolis is changing its name to the Cowles Center for Dance and Performing Arts.

The name change is in recognition of longtime arts patrons' John and Sage Cowles' support of the state's dance scene and the larger arts community.

Cowles Center Executive Director Mary McColl says the name change makes sense on a number of levels.

"When the dance community nationally, locally, internationally thinks of dance in the twin Cities they do think of the Cowles family," McColl said. "So not only is it appropriate for us to honor them as arts patrons but it just is such a perfect fit for the organization that we are going to be once the theater is open."

The Cowles Center is undergoing a more than $42 million restoration and is scheduled to open in the fall of 2011. The Cowles have given $2.3 million to the center's capital campaign.