Building · 2026
Pence Cultural and Performing Arts Center
A 91,000 SF steel and masonry performing arts center for Central Arizona College, with a 1,000-seat theater and a 95-foot fly tower, replacing the auditorium lost to a roof collapse in 2012.
- Type
- Building
- Year
- 2026
- Location
- Coolidge, AZ
- My role
- Project engineer
- Structural system
- Structural steel framing with masonry walls
- Size
- 91,000 SF · 1,000 seats
- Materials
- Steel, Masonry
- Status
- In construction
Overview
A ground-up performing arts center that gives Central Arizona College its main stage back. The original Pence Center auditorium was lost when its roof collapsed in 2012. This building replaces it and expands it into a hub for performance, teaching and community events.
The building
The south half of the building is a 1,000-seat theater designed for professional-level productions:
- A 95-foot fly tower with a gridiron above the stage, so scenery, curtains and lighting can be rigged and flown out of sight
- A 45-foot proscenium opening, with a control room and catwalks for lighting and stage technicians
- Dressing rooms, a green room and a full scene shop behind the stage
- A truck loading dock with power hookups, so touring shows can load straight in
The rest of the building holds classrooms and labs for entertainment technology, music, ceramics (with kilns), metals and welding, hospitality and culinary arts. A teaching kitchen serves a second-floor banquet and event space.
The building wraps around an interior courtyard with built-in concrete seating, shade and lighting. Steel pedestrian bridges link it across the landscaped campus, and a glass curtain wall marks the main entry.
Structural challenges
95-foot masonry theater walls. The masonry walls enclosing the theater and fly tower rise 95 feet, with very few intermediate floors along their height to brace them. The design had to address wind loads across that tall, largely unbraced height, in coordination with the gridiron and rigging systems at the top of the stage house.
Seamless sloping roof. The architecture calls for a single, continuous sloping roof over the building. Keeping that profile uninterrupted meant the roof framing had to follow the slope precisely across areas with different spans, heights and support conditions, without breaking the roof line.
Hung entry bridge. Instead of bearing on columns below, the entry bridge is suspended from the structure above. Every load on the bridge travels up through the hangers into the supporting framing, which makes the hanger connections and supporting members critical links in the load path. They required careful detailing, deflection checks and close coordination with the architectural design.
My role
As Project Engineer, I have been involved from design through construction:
- Structural modeling: Developed and maintained the building’s RAM structural model, keeping it current as the design evolved and using it to support member design and team coordination.
- Design coordination: Represented the structural team in design and coordination meetings with the architect and consultants, working through how architectural and building-systems decisions affected the structure.
- Connection detailing: Detailed the steel and masonry connections, including the interfaces between the steel framing and the masonry walls.
- Construction administration: Support the project through construction, responding to contractor questions (RFIs), reviewing submittals and shop drawings, and resolving field issues as the building goes up.