The City of San Diego celebrated the grand opening of the revitalized Performance Annex at the City Heights/Weingart Library, a vibrant cultural hub that has undergone its first major upgrades in nearly three decades. The refreshed venue is a unique black-box theater space that hosts free theatre, music, dance and other artistic and cultural performances.

Upgrades to the Performance Annex provide a significant boost to the cultural and community programs hosted there, encouraging social and economic investment into the City Heights Urban Village.

“City Heights represents the best of San Diego and this country — diverse, vibrant, creative, and with limitless potential. Our public spaces should reflect the talent, culture, and joy that already exist here,” said City Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera, who represents District 9. “These improvements make the Performance Annex a more accessible and welcoming home for local artists and community to gather, create, and celebrate. This is the sort of investment that shows our community the love every San Diego neighborhood deserves.”

Improvements to the facility include dressing rooms, a green room, a dedicated performer restroom, updated accessible public restrooms, an office space with a ticket window, a lobby vestibule at the theater entrance, security cameras and lighting, solar panels and battery storage, high-efficiency electric equipment, decorative fencing, landscaping, hardscaping, and accessible ramps, railings and pathways. The highlight of the improvements is the lighted marquee that sits atop the expanded facility.

The Performance Annex was built in 1998 and has had minimal improvements since opening. These upgrades help transform a modest community theater into a welcoming, functional and inspiring destination for local artists, performers and residents to promote diverse cultural disciplines from all over the world. The Performance Annex is the only black-box venue and theater owned and operated by the City of San Diego, offering free performances and classes to the community. It also has the unique ability to convert into an outdoor amphitheater with the adjacent Officer Jeremy Henwood Memorial Park, in collaboration with the Parks and Recreation Department.

“Funding the arts — whether visual, literary or performance — are life-changing investments in our communities,” said Library Director Misty Jones. “Each young San Diegan who discovers an interest, develops a skill or pursues a passion will be able to point to the Performance Annex at the City Heights/Weingart Library as evidence to the positive impacts artistic investments create.”

The City’s Engineering and Capital Projects Department managed the $6.5 million project, which was funded in part by a $3.3 million grant from the California State Library Building Forward Library Infrastructure Program and $1 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Economic Development Initiative Community Project Funding secured by Congresswoman Sara Jacobs.

“It is so important to have spaces for our community to come together, laugh, sing, and dance, no matter their financial situation. The Performance Annex has provided this and so much more to San Diegans for decades,” said Congresswoman Sara Jacobs. “I’m proud to have secured $1 million in federal funding to support local artists and improve this treasured community theater.”

“Investing in spaces like the Performance Annex is an investment in the people, the creativity and the culture that make City Heights such a special community,” said State Senator Akilah Weber Pierson, M.D. “These improvements will ensure residents of all ages have an accessible and welcoming place to experience the arts, discover new talents and come together as a community for years to come.”

The first event at the improved Performance Annex was Saturday, Sept. 26. Upcoming events include the Autumn Lantern Festival on Saturday, Oct. 3, a Dia de los Muertos celebration on Saturday, Oct. 31, and a performance of Shakespeare’s Macbeth on Friday, Nov. 20.