Decades in the making, the conversion of the St. Agnes Gymnasium into the new Performing Arts and Community Center (PACC) is now underway. The project — estimated to be completed by the Fall of 2024 — aims to completely revamp the underutilized space to create an official home for the previously capacity-restricted theater and music departments.
“Now that we have a performing arts space, people will be more interested in pursuing that,” said Leilli Kemali ‘25. “I feel like after COVID there was a lot less enthusiasm, just from what I understand. Getting more students involved in [performing arts], that’ll put more energy into the community.”
This extension to the Urban campus marks phase two of the campus expansion, following the completion of the Academic and Athletics Center, also known as the Mark Salkind Center, in 2016. The new building would not only serve as a venue for the arts, but two walkways surrounding the building act as an Americans with Disabilities Act [ADA] compliant connection between the Page Street building and Salkind Center, allowing accessibility for people with disabilities. With a capacity of over 300 people, a modular stage for various disciplines, classrooms, offices and a lobby, Urban is now able to more formally accommodate large-scale events such as plays, concerts, open houses, diversity nights, all school meetings and speakers.
“[The Performing Arts Center] allows us to have the facilities to match the passion and ambitions of our performing arts and create another venue for us to build community within the school,” said Head of School Dan Miller. “So whether you’re a musician, [actor] or a circus performer you will have the opportunity to really push yourself to the limits of your talent and motivation.”
Having a centralized hub has generated a lot of excitement among the faculty — more specifically it creates new opportunities to experiment with the additional space. “This is all going to be one building where everybody is like: if you’re involved in performing arts, you can come over there and have a space, meet with your own community and be able to explore what you’re doing,” said Scott Foster, music teacher and performing arts department chair.
Though Urban has performing arts facilities, they are insufficient for the plethora of classes and students the department has to host. Before the PACC reaches completion, the only dedicated performing arts spaces are tightly packed in the Southwest corner of the campus surrounding Gumption courtyard.
Currently, the theater department puts on musicals, plays and the Peer Ed Show in the Gumption, Urban’s historic black box theater. The Gumption has been an integral part of Urban’s history since its founding in 1966. It is an intimate and versatile space, allowing students to be immersed when watching productions, and even containing a wall signed by every member who has participated in an Urban production. However, it is limited by virtue of its size — only holding a maximum of 90 people, having few tech amenities and no connection to a dressing room.
As a result, student actors and the tech crew are forced to be resourceful when putting on plays; often utilizing external classrooms and finding ways to make the most of the available square footage of the Gumption. Upon the completion of the PACC, with a specific space for the theater department, Maya Herbsman, theater teacher and director hopes to push boundaries and innovatively expand the scope of Urban theater.
“I’m really going to be relying on my students. I think that students always have their hands on how to most effectively build and shift culture,” Herbsman said. “I’m going to be in close communication, especially with my older students: how can we sort of accommodate and assimilate this new space into our routines? How do we make it what we want to be?”

“The Gumption — I just feel a small sense of loss over moving out of such history, the place where I myself found theater for the first time,” Herbsman added. “But on the flip side of that, what a cool privilege for me to get to kind of be the person to shepherd in this new era of theater at Urban.”
With the addition of the PACC, the theater department will be able to fully integrate theater tech and larger-scale sets into their productions. Containing a tension grid above for lighting, a backstage, spacious storage and classrooms for building, theater tech will have a much wider range of new tools to experiment with. Although stage tech currently exists, in collaboration with the XLab, the PACC will be able to get even more students involved in productions, even if they aren’t the ones on stage.
“[With the PACC,] we have a space that’s capable of handling things like set building and prop building, and we can share tools and material to be able to facilitate the [activities] that will be happening in the performing arts center in art spaces like theater tech, and that sort of relationship is really really important to me,” said UrbanX Lab Director Bethany Hellerich.
As for the music department, pre-PACC, Jazz Band and Chamber Orchestra are often moved around because of the size of their classes. Currently, they practice in classrooms not meant for storing the myriad of instruments; oftentimes, students have to keep their instruments in lockers stashed at the back of rooms usually used for academic classes. Additionally, unlike the theater department, the music department does not have a dedicated space for performing, often going off campus to perform their concerts and combos.
“[To be] right here on campus. It’s just going to feel a little bit like we’re at home,” said Foster. “Having a central location — we’re all going to be in the same space. We’re going to be doors away from each other and able to access all the musicians, all the student musicians for all the different ensembles.”
With this transition, although it has not been decided, the performing arts department’s imminent shift to the PACC has caused speculation on what the Shed, Courtyard and the Gumption Theater could become post-transition. These spaces may transform into an extension of the UrbanX Lab, offices, classrooms or they might just remain the same. Regardless, what those spaces can become could bring a whole new set of possibilities outside of the PACC.
“A lot of people have various ambitions for [the Gumption], but we haven’t really made any decisions about it except a commitment to sort of retain the integrity of the space because it has [a] historic value at the school, [a] sentimental, cultural value,” Miller said.
The student body, half of whom will get to experience the PACC as students, share mixed feelings about the PACC. There’s much to be excited about — the center will usher a new age for performing arts at Urban available to the entire community but also, its construction brings some downsides, primarily felt by the closure of the passageway connecting the Page and Oak campuses.
“[I realize] there’s not a lot of room for shifting with our block schedule, but it doesn’t take two minutes to walk all the way. What if you have to talk to your teacher for 30 seconds after class?” Kemali said. “That’s gonna make you late for your next class.”
“It looks really amazing,” said Owen Lam ‘23, jazz band and bebop combo member. “It’s just a little disappointing when you’ve been in the performing arts program for all your time at Urban knowing that you won’t get to perform there before or after you graduate.”
The final, and perhaps most stressed facet of the PACC is the relationships the building could create with the larger Urban community and the entire Haight-Ashbury area. Urban has out to local nonprofits for future notice to host events at the PACC, ensuring that the impact of the construction extends outside of just a performing arts center. In addition to making a contribution to the local community, Miller and the administration have been trying to be as transparent as possible by giving details to residents in proximity to Urban. Furthermore, Urban has worked in collaboration with the Archdiocese of San Francisco and the nextdoor St. Agnes Parish to continue and strengthen the decades-long relationship Urban has created through the 100-year lease with its neighbor.
“The school has always been embedded in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood and we always talk about ways that we can be part of the community,” Miller said. “[PACC] also broadens the mission of the school to extend outside of the narrow confines of Urban — [we’re] trying to make it available for others so it broadens [our] impact. We want to make an authentic contribution to the community.”