Pacific Northwest Ballet is adding a third location to its popular ballet school.
The new PNB School location will be in Sodo’s Track Six building, at 3847 First Ave. S., from which the company is leasing 20,671 square feet (about half a floor), said Gary Tucker, PNB’s director of communications. The news was first reported by the Puget Sound Business Journal.
The new location will be called the Peter Boal Center, in honor of the company’s artistic director of more than 20 years. It will be in addition to PNB’s existing school facilities at the Phelps Center next to McCaw Hall, and in Bellevue at the Francia Russell Center.
“We’re running out of space at the Phelps Center,” said Tucker, who added that a number of classes currently taught there would move to the Sodo location. PNB School has just under 1,000 students at its two locations. The Boal Center will accommodate approximately 500 to 600 students in the school’s lower divisions as well as adult open classes, while upper division classes will stay at the Phelps Center.
Tucker said the Sodo space was chosen due to a number of factors: ease of parking and access, relative closeness to the Phelps Center, and the convenience of the location for a number of PNB School families “and potential new ones.”
Renovations on the site begin next week, with the goal of being finished by next summer and hosting classes for the fall 2027 season. The cost of the project is approximately $12.2 million.
As with many ballet companies, PNB’s school provides significant funding for the organization. Tucker said the school’s income is approximately 18% of the organization’s annual revenue. The school also serves as a feeder both for audience members and eventual company members. The majority of PNB company members are veterans of the PNB School. Tucker said that of the 48-member company for the 2025-26 season, 43 had received at least a year of training at the school.
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