Located on the northern part of campus near the Nicholson School of Communication Building, the Visual Arts Building started its initial construction in 1990. It has two floors and 68,921 square feet of available space for art studios, classrooms, large lecture halls and wall space to display artwork. The grand opening came in January of 1992 with the total cost of the building at $8.6 million, $1.1 million more than originally planned. While the building opened for classes and students in 1992, the insides of the classrooms were incomplete for several months and left students and teachers without blackboards, electrical outlets, and plumbing. Fall 2010 marked the completion of the second phase of construction of the Visual Arts Building—Visual Arts Building II.

Housed in the Visual Arts Building is the School of Visual Arts and Design, part of the College of Arts & Humanities. Classes from various other colleges within UCF, like the Human Anatomy course ZOO 3733 from the College of Medicine’s Molecular Biology and Microbiology Department, are also offered in the Visual Arts Building’s large auditorium-style classrooms.