Pennsylvania Ballet stepping toward new home on North Broad Street

It's almost two miles up Broad Street from Washington Avenue to Callowhill Street.

But for the Pennsylvania Ballet, the northward trek has been a journey of unimaginable transformation.

Two decades ago, the ballet company almost went out of business. It was drowning in debt and could no longer afford to keep its building at Broad and Washington, or maintain its own school.

Tuesday, it plans to break ground at 321 N. Broad St. for a $17.5 million project that will feature five dance studios, offices, and facilities for a soon-to-return School of the Pennsylvania Ballet.

The organization has raised $11.2 million for the first phase of the project. Most was contributed by donors; it will pay for the demolition of an existing building and renovation of a former garage for Brink's trucks into four dance studios.

Coming later will be a fifth studio, as large as the Academy of Music's stage, plus the renovation of a former halfway house for ex-offenders into office space.

"It's a powerful statement that we have $11 million in hand for this project," said Michael Scolamiero, executive director of the ballet. "There are a lot of people - not only in government, but individuals and foundations - who see this as an important project."

The city kicked in $1 million from its Cultural Corridors Fund, with the state contributing $2.5 million through the Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program. Scolamiero said the ballet expected to raise an additional $6 million for the building through its ongoing capital campaign.

The ballet company's decision to locate at Broad and Wood Streets, just below Callowhill, extends the Avenue of the Arts' vibrancy northward.

"It elevates what we always wanted for North Broad Street," said City Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown, who is also a board member of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance.

With the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and Freedom Theatre on North Broad, the Pennsylvania Ballet will provide another anchor for the Avenue of the Arts, she said.

The project also marks a milestone for the company by allowing it to bring back a dance school.

The School of the Pennsylvania Ballet opened in 1962, but during the depths of the company's financial troubles in 1992, it was spun off into a stand-alone nonprofit.

Now known as the Rock School of Dance Education, the school also took over the ballet company's former headquarters at Broad and Washington.