The MHS Music and Performing Arts Center (PAC) is scheduled to open in January 2026, according to the MHS website. The company leading the PAC project is TBK Construction Management Corporation. The PAC, which is just under 40,000 square ft., is at roughly 40% completion and may possibly reach 50% by the end of this year, TBK Construction Management Corporation’s company founder and CEO Travis Kirk said.
At the peak, there are around 80-100 people working daily on the site of the PAC, TBK Construction Management Corporation’s Project Manager Kyle Kirk, the lead on the PAC, said. The part of the PAC currently under construction is the choral, band, and orchestra rooms, all cumulatively called the classrooms section, Travis Kirk said. The classrooms section and theater with over 557 seats will all have high ceilings and lots of acoustics, he added.
“It’s (PAC) a one-story building with the exception that it’s 54 feet high because it’s a theater, and that gives you better acoustics,” Travis Kirk said. “There is a set of stairs and an elevator, but it goes to a control room – a control room that is in the back of the theater, looks on the stage, and can control your sound and lights. Then above that is what’s called a follow spot room, and that’s a guy with a spotlight.”
Rain is a major cause of delays in the project, which is able to be mitigated by lime treating the soil, Travis Kirk said. Lime is laid on top of soil to help it firm up and shed water, he added. The pandemic was also a big cause of delays, he said.
“The pandemic impacted the overall budget of the district,” Travis Kirk said. “The original project was the Performing Arts Center, a second gym, and a fitness center. And so when the pandemic hit, the cost of everything went up maybe 30%, so the district had to make a decision on what to build. Because they didn’t have enough money to build all three, they decided that the theater and Performing Arts Center was probably the most impactful to the community as a whole.”
The first focus meetings for the PAC started around Feb. 14, 2019, Assistant Principal Jennifer Hutchinson said. Meetings on architecture and design took place between February 2020 to December of that year, she said.
“We had meetings with community members, what they wanted to see in it (PAC),” Hutchinson said. “The whole school staff, what they wanted to see in this plan, and then smaller, into concentrated groupings to determine what the seat cover in the theater will look like, or what color the lobby is. We held a public forum (February – April 2019) where anybody could come, and we made special invites to have people come in to give feedback and input.”
TBK Construction Management Corporation is seven years old and has managed $700 million worth of K-12 school facility projects, Travis Kirk said. The PAC is a project funded by the Measure AA bond issue, allowing MUSD to issue up to $284 million in taxes to fund facilities, classrooms, and equipment, according to the MUSD website.
“The moment a school district passes a bond, which is how you fund school construction, we come in and help them with the programming,” Travis Kirk said. “We do the programming. So we’re working with the architect and with the end user (MUSD). (…) Sometimes you get what’s called scope creep, which is where everybody wants Carnegie Hall, but you have a budget for something much less. And so we try to help control and navigate through that process with all the end users, and then we put it out to bid. We get a contractor on board, shepherd the job to completion, then close that out with the Division of State architect.”
The biggest difference between the PAC and current band rooms is size, since the current band classrooms are too small, have low ceilings, and bad acoustics, music teacher Emily Moore said.
“The (new) theater will hold larger crowds,” Moore said. “Then it’s going to help boost our music program. We have 700 kids in elementary music right now, so we will need a place to have all of them. The community of Milpitas really doesn’t have something like this.”