Major Campus Expansion Coming To SF Conservatory Of Music

SAN FRANCISCO – The San Francisco Conservatory of Music announced Wednesday it will expand its campus with the construction of a 12-story building along Van Ness Avenue, complete with student and faculty housing, concert halls, a restaurant, classrooms and a recording studio, among other amenities.

The $185 million building, called Ute and William K. Bowes, Jr. Center for Performing Arts, will be located at 200 Van Ness and construction is slated to start this summer.

The new facility is set to open in the fall of 2020. After its opening, the current conservatory location at 50 Oak St. will remain open and active, conservatory officials said.

"This project will fuel the unlimited potential of this institution and serve as a beacon for the innovative artists who will lead the next generation," Conservatory of Music President David H. Still said.

The new building will be able to house 420 students and feature two separate concert halls that will hold hundreds of annual performances, 90 percent of which will be free and open to the public.

There will be a restaurant with a live performance space, classrooms and rehearsal spaces, practice rooms, a large observation deck and garden, conference facilities, a student center and apartments for visiting
artists and faculty.

Additionally, 27 apartments will be added to replace the rent-stabilized apartment building that currently sits at the location. Those tenants will be relocated to a neighboring building during the construction and will then be moved into the new facility with the terms of their existing rental agreements.

The new campus was named after William K. Bowes, Jr., a SFCM supporter and 22-year trustee who passed away in 2016, following a $46.4 million gift from the William K. Bowes, Jr. Foundation. It was the largest
single gift ever made to a conservatory of music for a new facility, conservatory officials said.

With the gift, $96 million has been raised toward a fundraising goal of $110 million to plan for the school's future.

Mark Cavagnero, of San Francisco-based architecture firm Mark Cavagnero Associates, which is designing the building, said of the new building, "It will provide a completely integrated environment where students
will live, learn, rehearse, perform, socialize and engage the larger community. There has been extraordinary attention paid to detail and the craft of building, to materiality and light, as these will inspire each student in different ways at different times."

"This building, this organism, will be alive 24 hours a day, filled with the sights and sounds of music and people, propelling the conservatory forward for generations to come, in the very heart of the San Francisco Performing Arts District," Cavagnero said.

First founded in 1917, the SFCM has become an international destination for budding musicians. Currently, the school offers its roughly 400 students fully accredited bachelor's and master's degrees and professional diplomas in composition, instrumental and vocal performance, in addition to other music-related disciplines.

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