{"id":312390,"date":"2026-10-23T02:32:22","date_gmt":"2026-10-23T02:32:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/312390\/"},"modified":"2026-10-23T02:32:22","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T02:32:22","slug":"former-uarts-building-arts-bank-gets-a-second-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/312390\/","title":{"rendered":"Former UArts Building Arts Bank Gets a Second Act"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNews<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Music Theatre Philly has signed a 10-year lease at Arts Bank, aiming to reopen the space to Philadelphia\u2019s performing arts community.<\/p>\n

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Arts Bank \/ Photograph by Greg Benson via MPN Realty<\/p>\n

The news traveled quickly as the audience took their seats at Arts Bank on the evening of May 31, 2024. The University of the Arts was abruptly closing, leaving students, faculty, and staff reeling \u2014 and the city\u2019s theater community facing the loss of a major training ground, creative hub, and source of performance and rehearsal space. We were on campus, inside a building owned by the university, 10 minutes before Music Theatre Philly<\/a>\u2019s teen production of Chicago. The nonprofit would be the last company to perform at the Arts Bank before the theater went dark.<\/p>\n

Tim Popp, executive director of MTP, remembers \u201ccomplicated emotions swirling that evening.\u201d The show went on, even as the people in the room tried to process the news. UArts had long been a welcoming place for Music Theatre Philly, which had staged several productions at Arts Bank and other UArts performance spaces over the years. Now, suddenly, the building\u2019s future \u2014 and the future of the institution that had made it available \u2014 was uncertain.<\/p>\n

UArts\u2019s closure in June 2024 was a shock to the Philadelphia arts community<\/a>, leaving more than 1,000 students without a university to return to and hundreds of faculty and staff unemployed. It also left behind a real estate portfolio of nine properties, totaling roughly 760,000 square feet, concentrated largely along the Avenue of the Arts. As those buildings went through bankruptcy proceedings and were sold to new owners, the question was not just what would happen to the real estate, but how much of the campus\u2019s role as a home for artists, students, and arts organizations might survive.<\/p>\n

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Music Theatre Philly\u2019s final performance at Arts Bank on May 31, 2024 \/ Photograph courtesy of Music Theatre Philly<\/p>\n

For a while, the future of the Arts Bank looked like a real estate story: The historic South Broad Street building was being considered for redevelopment into a mixed-use property with residential space. A bankruptcy judge approved the $2.71 million sale to Quadro Bay in February 2025<\/a>, despite a competing bid from Lantern Theater Company, which wanted to turn the building into its home. (The Pennsylvania attorney general\u2019s office had unsuccessfully argued that keeping the property in arts use would better honor the intentions behind the charitable funding that helped establish it as a performing arts venue.)<\/p>\n

Then, this past summer, redevelopment plans were put on hold, and the owners began looking for tenants<\/a>. MTP founder Mindy Dougherty Baiada was driving down Broad Street as she noticed the sign declaring Arts Bank up for lease. \u201cThis feels meant to be,\u201d wrote to the landlord in her letter of intent. After years of performing at Arts Bank, her organization knew the theater, the dance studio, and the black-box space.<\/p>\n

And now, it will have the keys.<\/p>\n

Music Theatre Philly has signed a 10-year lease for the entire building, with options to extend and a right of first refusal if the landlord decides to sell. The deal gives MTP a second home, with room for classes, rehearsals, and productions. But it will also preserve the Arts Bank as a working cultural venue at a moment when the unsettled future of the former UArts campus is still reshaping the Avenue of the Arts.<\/p>\n

The building includes a main theater with approximately 240 seats, a smaller black-box theater, a large dance studio, vocal rooms, offices, and additional rooms for classes and rehearsals. MTP plans to add a summer camp for students in grades four through 12 at the Arts Bank, while continuing existing programs at its current home on 1301 Locust Street.<\/p>\n

For Baiada, the goal is to make the Arts Bank building useful not just to MTP, but to other organizations that need somewhere to rehearse or perform. In the early 1990s, the William Penn Foundation contributed $6.37 million<\/a> toward UArts\u2019s acquisition and renovation of the former bank building, with the express goal of creating a venue that could be used by multiple nonprofit arts organizations. UArts had offered a network of spaces that local groups could rent, from theaters to rooms for classes and camps. Its closure removed some of that shared infrastructure at a time when producing organizations already face the challenge of finding affordable, available venues. Baiada hopes Music Theatre Philly can help fill that gap, creating \u201ca dynamic, multi-use arts destination that is active throughout the week and welcoming to the wider community.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Camp at Music Theatre Philly\u2019s Locust Street studio \/ Photograph by Laura Swartz<\/p>\n

With classes by day, rehearsals in the afternoon, and performances and community rentals at night and on weekends, she envisions the Arts Bank as being \u201calive with activity,\u201d and full of creativity: \u201cFrom immersive theatrical experiences and creative programming for children to poetry theater, comedy nights, and artist residencies, we hope to develop opportunities that respond to the interests and aspirations of our community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baiada\u2019s ambitions for the space are rooted in the experience that led her to start Music Theatre Philly in the first place. Growing up with a single mother, she received financial aid that helped make arts education possible for her. \u201cIf I didn\u2019t have \u2026 the support of many organizations that kind of slipped me in there so that I could participate, I don\u2019t know where I would be,\u201d she tells me.<\/p>\n

When she went to college for musical theater, \u201cI got there and everyone was so much more prepared than me. They all had their book lined up with their perfect 16-bar cuts and I just came in like completely blind, just like raw talent and no preparation. And it made me think at that moment, \u2018I can\u2019t believe I didn\u2019t have what these kids grew up with.\u2019\u201d Baiada would go on to perform on Broadway and pursue graduate studies in theater education at NYU, but that feeling of starting off behind never left her; it would shape her commitment to making theater training accessible to kids like her.<\/p>\n

In 2015, she started Music Theatre Philly in a church basement with four students, two of them her own daughters. They expanded to a studio at 12th and Spruce in 2017; and then in 2024, expanded into a three-story studio space at 13th and Locust. And with its growing footprint, the organization has grown to serve hundreds of families each week, offering classes, camps, workshops, and full-scale productions. The programming has grown into an entire creative ecosystem for theater kids from age two to 18, from \u201cBroadway Babies\u201d to the high-school training track. (There are even classes and productions for parents reliving their on-stage dreams.) Of those participating, they estimate that 20 percent of families receive financial aid for classes, camps, and productions. In 2026, they tell me, they\u2019ve already awarded 150 scholarships.<\/p>\n

Before joining Music Theatre Philly, Popp worked in UArts\u2019s fundraising office and served as director of alumni relations. When he later joined Music Theatre Philly, the Arts Bank was one of the first places he called, as they were beginning to stage full productions, and finding suitable venues was a challenge. UArts\u2019s rental staff helped MTP get its shows onstage, and the organization returned repeatedly. Five of its production seasons were staged there, until the relationship ended with the university\u2019s closure. (In the aftermath, the late theater artist Carrie Gorn helped connect Music Theatre Philly with the Wilma Theater, which has hosted its productions in the years since.)<\/p>\n

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Photograph courtesy of Music Theatre Philly<\/p>\n

The extra room is about more than adding shows to the calendar. At venues such as the Wilma, Popp says, teen performers typically get about four rehearsals onstage before a production, while younger children get two. The schedule is tight, and the sets and costumes have to be portable enough to be loaded in and out quickly.<\/p>\n

With a theater of its own, MTP can give performers more time on stage, offer designers more time to build, and experiment with more ambitious productions. It can also develop educational opportunities for students who are interested in theater but do not necessarily want to perform.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything about theater requires so many different kinds of talents,\u201d Popp says. The new space, he hopes, will give children with different interests a way into the art form.<\/p>\n

To that end, MTP hopes to build a technical theater program that introduces young people to lighting, set design, costuming, carpentry, and other behind-the-scenes work. Rather than getting a brief introduction during tech week, students could have more time to learn from professionals and work with the equipment. \u201cIn the city of Philadelphia, we are losing arts funding every day. There are not very many schools that have theater offerings to begin with, let alone a fully realized production company,\u201d Baiada explains, \u201cso we really hope to elevate the entire experience where kids really get hands on in creating these productions.\u201d<\/p>\n

During a walkthrough of the space over the summer, Popp found a student\u2019s script from Chicago still sitting in the lighting booth, apparently left behind when UArts shut down. He brought it back to MTP\u2019s Locust Street studio and handed it to the student who had left it there \u2014 a small artifact from a chaotic moment, and a reminder of the young performers whose lives had already been shaped by the building.<\/p>\n

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Music Theatre Philly\u2019s first performance at Arts Bank: Rent \/ Photograph courtesy of Music Theatre Philly<\/p>\n

For some of MTP\u2019s teenage performers, returning to Arts Bank will mean more than getting a new stage. Several made their debuts there, finding friends, discovering the thrill of performing, and beginning to think of themselves as \u201ctheater people.\u201d Now, they may get to return not just for a weekend of shows, but as members of a community helping shape the future of the Avenue of the Arts left in UArts\u2019s wake. (Adding to this, Scout, the design and development firm known for transforming the former Bok vocational school in South Philadelphia into a mixed-use creative hub, purchased Hamilton and Furness halls in 2025. The firm has relaunched the site as the Village of Industry & Art<\/a>, with plans for artist workspaces, creative businesses, cultural programming, and affordable housing for artists.) Popp hopes the space will be ready for the organization\u2019s spring musical, allowing those students to finish their time with MTP where it began.<\/p>\n

First, there\u2019s work to do. Much of the equipment, including three pianos, appears to have been left behind when UArts closed, but MTP needs to replace the lighting and sound boards and determine what can be salvaged. Popp says the building has been remarkably well preserved, and Baiada says the landlord is contributing toward improvements, though the full scope and cost remain to be determined. MTP has set a $150,000 fundraising goal to help cover technical staff, lighting and sound equipment, and other upgrades.<\/p>\n

When UArts closed, the last company to perform at Arts Bank had no idea what would become of the stage beneath its feet. Now, Music Theatre Philly is working to bring it back to life so that the next generation of performers can have a place to learn, create, and, when the curtain rises, make a little noise of their own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"News Music Theatre Philly has signed a 10-year lease at Arts Bank, aiming to reopen the space to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70],"class_list":["post-312390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}