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Only two years from completion, the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts crested a fundraising benchmark this week: 100 donors have given at least $1 million or more toward construction of the $275 million facility in the Arts District.

Center officials identified the 100th donor of $1 million or more as the family of the late Texas congressman James M. Collins, who represented Dallas in the House of Representatives from the 1960s to the 1980s. Officials called the milestone unprecedented, saying that no other capital campaign benefiting a U.S. cultural institution has received "this number of gifts of this size."

"Reaching the 100th donor threshold is truly extraordinary," Bill Lively, president and CEO of the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts, said Thursday, "when you realize that Dallas has done what no other city in the country has done, and it's done it for culture. The fact that our 100th donor was the James M. Collins family is really fortuitous and special. Congressman Collins was a great American and a great Dallasite."

The center remains $23 million short of its goal – provided the cost doesn't exceed the $275 million budget. The only way the cost would go higher, contends Mr. Lively, "is if we decide to build more. At the moment, we're on schedule and on budget."

Mr. Lively says he's encouraged by the fact that most of the 100 donors "are not, historically, supporters of the Dallas arts community. More than half, I would say, made their gifts purely as an investment in the future of our city."

Dorothy Collins Weaver, a daughter of Rep. Collins who lives in Coral Gables, Fla., says that she and her brother, Michael Collins; her sister, Nancy Collins Fisher; and their mother, Dee Collins Torbert, the congressman's widow, made the donation for the very reason Mr. Lively outlined – as an investment in the future of Dallas.

Jim Mahoney / DMN

Bill Lively, president and CEO of the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts, stands in front of the Winspear Opera House along Woodall Rogers Freeway, next door to the Meyerson Symphony Center.

"We were happy to push them over the top," said Ms. Weaver.

When it's finished, the complex will include the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House, the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre, Annette Strauss Artist Square and city-funded City Performance Hall, all of which will be unified by a 10-acre Performance Park. Construction of the opera house and the Wyly Theatre has already begun and are expected to be completed in October 2009.

Mr. Lively says universities may have benefited from having 100 or more donors contribute at least $1 million each to a capital campaign, but he knows of no cultural endeavor that has had that many people giving that much money.

He's supported in that assessment by David Resnicow, who co-owns the New York firm Resnicow Schroeder Associates in New York, and who has worked as a consultant to various arts organizations in Dallas, as well as the center.

"We've worked with more than 100 cultural institutions across the U.S.," says Mr. Resnicow. "And we don't know of another example anywhere where there have been such a large number of donors at this level – $1 million-plus."

Fund-raisers in New York and Los Angeles often have the benefit, he says, of pulling donors from across the country and around the world, but "even to the best of their knowledge, they know of no instance in which this many people have given this much money – collectively."

Ms. Weaver says that she and her family were impressed by "the broad visionary plans" of the center, but gave their gift knowing it's something their father would have wanted them to do.

"My father was a very committed civic leader in Dallas," says Ms. Weaver, who has "always maintained my ties to Dallas. As Dad always told us, it has no ocean, no major rivers, but Dallas is great for its people. There's no reason for Dallas to exist, really, but it has great people, pride and vision and a willingness to roll up its sleeves and turn its dreams into reality."

Kenneth and Ruth Sharp Altshuler

Harry W. Bass Jr. Foundation

Boeckman family, through Boeckman Family Foundation and JFM Foundation

Christine and Eric Brauss

Diane and Hal Brierley

Toni and Norman Brinker

Nancy and Clint Carlson

Mary Anne and Richard Cree

Linda and Bill Custard and Frank Pitts

Arlene and John Dayton

The Bradbury Dyer III Foundation

The Rosemary and Roger Enrico family

Amy and Vernon Faulconer

Candice and Robert Haas

Fanchon and Howard Hallam

Gene and Jerry Jones

Kim Hiett Jordan

Mark L. and Barbara Thomas Lemmon

Joy and Ronald Mankoff

Nancy Cain Marcus

Phyllis and Tom H. McCasland Jr.

Mrs. Eugene McDermott

Juanita and Henry S. Miller Jr. and the Miller family (Vance Charles Miller, Patricia Miller Donosky, Henry S. Miller III, Jacqueline Miller Stewart)

Dana and Charles Nearburg

Paulos Foundation, honoring Angela D. Paulos

Sarah and Ross Perot Jr.

Nelda Cain Pickens

The Vin and Caren Prothro Foundation

Emily Frances and John Raymond

Edward W. and Deedie Potter Rose

Sarah M. and Charles E. Seay

Stemmons Foundation

The Theodore H. Strauss family

Margaret and Jack Sweet

Debbie and John C. Tolleson

Ellen and J. McDonald Williams

Jean D. Wilson

Margot and Bill Winspear

Mary and Bob Wright

Cheryl and Sam Wyly

Dee and Charles Wyly

Anonymous (three)

Jane and Ron Beneke family

The Robert H. Dedman family

Leah and Jerry Fullinwider

Hegi Family Foundation

Cinda and Tom Hicks

J.L. and Sydney Thweatt Huffines

The Jerry R. Junkins Family Foundation

The Irvin L. Levy and Kenneth L. Schnitzer families

Nancy and Kenton McGee, Alexandra and Robert Lavie and the McGee Foundation

The Murchison family

Virginia and Robert Payne family

Margot and Ross Perot

Boone Pickens

Caren Prothro

Cindy and Howard Rachofsky

Jan and Trevor Rees-Jones

Peggy and Leonard Riggs

Sue Gill Rose in honor of Margaret McDermott

Peggy and Carl Sewell

Annette and Harold Simmons

Jane and Bud Smith

Gayle and Paul Stoffel

Bea and Ray Wallace

Donna M. Wilhelm

Kathy and Rodney Woods

Anonymous (two)

The Alberts family

The James M. Collins family

Marguerite Steed Hoffman in memory of Edmund Hoffman and in honor of Margaret McDermott

Carole and John Ridings Lee

Anonymous (two)

Alon USA

American Airlines

Bank of America

Brinker International

Communities Foundation of Texas

Dallas Leadership Banking Partnership

The Dallas Opera Landmark Fund

Dean Foods

EDS

Elsa Von Seggern Foundation

Eugene McDermott Foundation

Flagship Corporate Alliance

Hoblitzelle Foundation

JPMorgan Chase – Dallas

Kimberly-Clark Corporation

Landmark Partnership

The Meadows Foundation

Nokia

Once Upon a Time

Perkins-Prothro Foundation

The Rosewood Foundation

Texas Instruments

TXU Energy