A Stage for Somerset

A new performing arts center is the final piece of a 10-year master plan effort that transforms the district’s facilities and provides a new home for the district’s arts programs, including its famed mariachi group.

Somerset ISD’s new performing arts center is the capstone of a 10-year effort to reshape the rural Texas district’s facilities. Designed to serve equally as a cultural anchor and a districtwide academic resource, the center packs a secure 996-seat auditorium, multifunctional lobby and a wide array of rehearsal, performance and support spaces for band, mariachi, dance and cheer into a 41,000-square-foot facility on a modest budget.

“From the start, the goal was to make every part of the project serve more than one purpose,” said Jim Oppelt, design director at LPA. “The auditorium, the lobby, the outdoor spaces — nearly every element was designed for daily academic use as well as performances and community life.”

The glaring omission was a performing arts center. Mariachi Azul Real, the district’s nationally recognized mariachi group, was performing before standing-room-only crowds in the middle school cafeteria. In 2018, a $20 million bond was approved with the support of 80% of voters, with the majority of the funds earmarked for a performing arts center.

“When I first started, one of the things that kept coming up was that we had done all these projects on the 10-year plan with the exception of a fine-arts center,” said former superintendent Dr. Saul Hinojosa.

The Process

The first challenge was finding an appropriate site for the center. “There were no clear links between campuses prior to the PAC,” Oppelt says. “Our team worked with the district to understand the need for multiple connections between campuses and to locate them where they made sense.”

The choice was a former softball field between Somerset High School and the nearby Shirleen Zacharias Early College Leadership Academy campus, a location that could serve students during the day and the community at night. The site left room for new plazas, pathways and shaded gathering areas that now work as shared commons, while also tying the two campuses together more directly. Just as important, it created three points of entry and exit with distributed parking, easing traffic during major events and providing overflow for athletics.

“We tried to look at every possible problem first — traffic flow, points of entry, how crowds would dismiss after an event,” said former associate superintendent of operations Dr. Ramiro Nava. “We studied all those angles, and with LPA’s help, it all came together in a way that solved problems we’d been facing for years.”

The facility presented its own challenges. Performing arts centers are typically more expensive per square foot than educational, administrative or athletics buildings. There are numerous complexities inherent in the building type, including sloped floors, long-span structure and tall volumes. They are also full of technology, and they have specific HVAC needs relating to acoustics and specific acoustical requirements to prevent sound leakage between performance spaces.

“When faced with a performing arts center budget, it’s important to make good decisions early with programming and efficiency to ensure you don’t overbuild and overuse materials,” Oppelt says. “But you can’t sacrifice performance.”

Inside, the spaces layer functions to serve academics as fully as performances. The auditorium’s front rows are fitted with foldable desks, turning the theater into a lecture hall or testing site for large exams. The lobby, designed wide and equipped with projection, hosts professional development sessions, job fairs, community events and district board meetings, as well as its role receiving theater audiences.

To maximize public space, there is no “back side” to the building. The loading bay doubles as a multipurpose performance space, with concrete steps and built-in seating that transform the area into an outdoor stage, complete with lighting for concerts, theater productions or everyday gatherings. Around it, the landscape extends the building’s reach with plazas, walkways and shaded commons that encourage students and families to linger. Artificial turf outside the lobby doubles as a lunch spot and practice field, making the outside as flexible as the spaces inside.

“We worked to create spaces outside the building that go beyond circulation,” says LPA Director of Landscape Architecture Kari Kikuta. “These various scaled spaces invite new opportunities on campus for students to gather, play and connect.”

Additional optimizations chipped away further at the price tag. One of the most significant decisions was to renovate the existing fine-arts building into a black-box theater, avoiding the cost of building a new rehearsal and drama facility. That freed resources for a main auditorium large enough to serve district growth, and for enhancements such as a larger lobby and upgraded finishes.

Designers used solar modeling and passive design strategies to cut energy spending by 72%. Other choices, like the height of the fly loft, cutting the orchestra pit and using natural ramps instead of elevators, gave the team further wiggle room in the budget.

“What made the difference was LPA’s willingness to listen and adapt,” Nava said. “They helped us think through every detail so the project didn’t just look good on paper — it worked for our students, our teachers and our community.”

A New Era

Since its opening, the project has become both a district-wide resource facility and a regional arts magnet. Professional groups including the San Antonio Orchestra and Ballet Folklorico from Mexico have performed there, alongside mariachi festivals and competitions. With nearly 1,000 seats and a mix of flexible spaces, it is one of the most capable cultural centers in the area, and a new point of pride for Somerset.

The center maximizes the space and the budget, putting a bow on the lengthy process that transformed the district.

“The best part of it is we passed the bond and we were able to do it under budget and on time,” Hinojosa says. “We’re really grateful for the partnership that we had with LPA and the work they did in building such an outstanding facility that will be there to serve the community for years to come.”