ORANGE BEACH – In the Master Plan for the Coastal Arts Center of Orange Beach, the current Hot Shop glass-blowing studio will become a Dream Hot Shop.

“There is in the master plan room for a dream glass studio, really, really fancy,” center Coordinator Wanda Price said. “But that’s a long ways down the road.”

But the framework for that dream is going up right now on the center’s grounds. A new 60-by-40-foot pavilion is going up to accommodate a new area for the glass-blowing Hot Shop.

The Hot Shop is currently housed in an old cabin that was used for visitors to the old hotel the main center is housed in. Heat from the 2,700-degree oven is starting to wear on the building.

“We had to do something right now because of structural problems with the building we’re in,” Price said. “This seemed like a good solution and it will be very functional.

“We have outgrown our space and because some of the limitations of the building that the Hot Shop is housed in. We really need it to be able to move the equipment to some other kind of facility and so the most economical thing that we could do was to build this open-air hot glass studio.”

Open-air facilities for glass-blowing are not usual, Price said.

“That’s not an unknown method for studios,” she said. “The University of Montevallo’s glass-blowing studio is open air. With our weather down here it seemed like a good way to go for us.

“It just allows us a lot of flexibility. It will be just an open-air pavilion. It will have slatted sides but it will get everything under a single roof, all the equipment.”

The expanded space will allow more visitors to view the demonstrations and the area will be expanded so two artists can work for audiences at the same time.

“What we’re doing now is going to be wonderful,” Price said. “You saw the tent out there right now where people sit and watch. All of that will now be gone and people will actually sit under the pavilion.

“Also we’ll be able to have a second bench out there so we’ll be able to have two glass blowers during busy seasons and when we’re demoing and that sort of thing. So that’s very exciting.”

An important part of the center’s work involves schoolchildren visiting and the Hot Shop is a popular part of those tours.

“Right now if we have a field trip and we have more than 25 kids, the kids in the back really can’t see very well,” Price said. “And the way this space will be laid out then we can have 50-60 people and they’ll be able to see what’s going on.

“And that’s an important part of what we do. We do a lot of educational outreach. A lot of schools come and we did four field trips this week.”

The furnace for glass blowing has to run constantly, Price said, and the new area will allow more access to molten glass inside.

“We have a small glory hole, a large glory hole and a medium glory hole,” Price said.

One of the most popular features of the Hot Shop will continue like normal.

“We’re the only public-access glass-blowing studio in the state,” Price said. “We’re the only place where if someone says ‘I’ve always wanted to learn and try to do that’ where you can actually come and learn this just as a citizen. It’s a wonderful asset to our city and to the Gulf Coast.”

It is also only one of three glass-blowing facilities in Alabama. The University of South Alabama recently opened its shop.

“Glass-blowing studios are few and far between,” Price said.