With architectural drawings, elaborate feature and room illustrations, background information and a building campaign, Artistic Director Dan Yonah Ben-Dror Marshall has unveiled plans for a new home for the Brookline Community Center for the Arts.

A March 18 “A Taste of the Arts” Gala at John Hancock Hall and the Back Bay Grand ballroom, to feature numerous dance, music and visual artists (including a visiting caricature artist from Israel), will launch a fundraising drive to secure the site, which is located within the former Garber Travel building at 1047 Comm. Ave. in Boston. The building, which boasts an art deco façade, is adjacent to Boston University and Packard’s Corner and near the Brookline and Allston/Brighton lines.

Proposed innovations include seven state-of-the-art studio rooms with sprung-wood floors, wall-to-wall back-lit mirrors, and A/V systems, as one would expect from a dance complex. But Marshall has expanded the offerings at the Center’s former location at 14 Green St. in Coolidge Corner to include a theatre, grand ballroom and entertainment hall, lighting and theater seating systems, a retail store, gallery, radio station and a recording studio.

Ambitious designs are nothing new for Marshall, who launched the BCCA in 2003 in a former Aish HaTorah location with SalsaBoston director Olaf Bleck and independent consultant Vlad Selsky. The team spared nothing in revamping the digs, and ultimately, over 170 classes in tango, salsa, cha cha, merengue, Israeli folk, Irish, Brazilian and other formats, as well as mime, martial arts, children’s and senior groups, folk open mikes, movies, Israeli events and poetry filled the gleaming floors and the top-notch sound systems. “The BCCA brought together hundreds of local, national and international artists, and thousands of members of the Greater Boston community,” recalled Marshall, a 1992 Brookline High school graduate and Brookline resident who holds a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from University of Massachusetts and is completing a master's degree in computer engineering at Northeastern University. Marshall studied dance in Western Massachusetts and Israel, where he lived until the age of 15.

It is easy to understand Marshall’s drive to make a difference. His father, James, who works at the Four Seasons Hotel, conducted Ph.D. research on "Black-Jewish Political Relations in New York City in the 1960s.” Marshall’s mother, Esther, is at Thomson Heinle Publishers' Higher Education and World Languages, his sister is finishing an MIT degree en route to a Ph.D. in computational biology, and his brother is completing a fellowship in Behavioral Neurology (with a focus on Alzheimer's) at UCLA.

Difficulties with the landlord caused BCCA to lose its lease last May, and despite a valiant struggle to stay alive, the Kabbalah Centre took over the space. The BCCA continued to sponsor events and classes at other venues prior to Marshall’s announcement.

The new, second-floor facility features direct T access, ample on-site and street parking, wheelchair accessibility, natural light and frontage, and is 15,437 square feet, as opposed to Green Street’s 2,350. Impressive amenities include a 3,467 square foot Grand Ballroom and Entertainment Hall, a 200-seat Automated Theater Seating System, a “Ballet” Bar with full food and beverage service, a wheelchair lift, an “Urban Pulse” Dance & Fitness Store, a “Local Motion” Visual Arts Gallery, Men's & Women's Dressing Rooms, a WBCCA Radio Station & Recording Studio and more. The $3,750,000 capital plan, divided into three segments, includes naming rights to these and the seven studios, with brass plaques and dedication ceremonies. Supporters can also name each of the 600 Bricks in the Grand Hallway's “Yellow Brick Road.” Marshall also plans to debut an international internet, and later satellite, arts broadcasting system to network artists and students everywhere. The non-profit entity will work in tandem with the BCCA, and has been offered an equipment grant from Best Buy.

“The sky is the limit,” said Marshall, who says they will be getting twice the space for about 1.25 times the cost of the Green Street building.

“I’ve gone through the building with him to assess suitability,” said realtor Harold Brown of Hamilton Properties, located nearby on Brighton Ave. Last year, Brown offered what he called a “Solomonic solution” - to finance a purchase of the 14 Green St. building through his Hamilton Charitable Trust, and provide a long term lease to the BCCA and possibly the Kabbalah Centre as well.

“Dan is a very creative person, and it sounds like he has a viable structure that will work with the proper funding,” said Brown, who added that he may at some point become involved. “I like his enthusiasm,” he said. “It’s important that people understand that they aren’t buying the building,“ he noted, “but rather a condominium within the building.”

The building, owned by Renaissance Properties, a real estate development and historic preservation firm, is divided into commercial condominiums of roughly 15,000 square feet each. Renaissance’s other developments include the Electric Carriage House in Boston (their corporate headquarters, and home to Boston Children’s Theater) as well as Dartmouth Square, Clarendon Square, Garrison Square, and the Bigelow and Tuckerman School house restorations. .

“We think that Dan is an incredibly impassioned young man who is doing something very important,“ said Renaissance Chairman and Founder Roger Tackeff. “We hope that he will be able to pull all the pieces together to make this cultural organization flourish.“

Tackeff praised Marshall’s combined passion for the arts and technical skills. “He’ll tell you about dance, the visual arts and culture, and five minutes later, he will talk about engineers and contractors - this is very unusual coming from a Renaissance man,” he said. Marshall, he noted, possesses an ability to bring people to him. “He is very charming.”

He can relate, he said. “The part of me that went to Brandeis is often in dichotomy with the part that went to Harvard Business School.” Tackeff’s board memberships, for example, include the Boston Preservation Alliance, the Ellis Memorial and Eldredge House social service agency, the Hebrew Rehabilitation Center, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (his father, Bertram, an original founder of Brandeis, was involved with CJP leadership for decades, and is the longest serving trustee of BIDMC), the Rivers School, the Friends of Hays Park and the Friends of Childe Hassam Park.

“Whenever someone does something important in this world,“ he said, “it’s often the people who get things done when others have told them not to do it. We would be glad to sell it if Dan can put it together.”

For more information on the BCCA move and details on the Taste of the Arts Gala, please visit http://www.bccaonline.com.