The City Heights/Weingart Library, home of the Performance Annex, which has reopened after its first major renovation in 28 years. Photo: Kire1975, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
The City of San Diego has reopened the Performance Annex at the City Heights/Weingart Library after what officials described as the first major work on the space in 28 years. In an Oct. 2 news release, the city said it had celebrated the grand opening of the renovated black-box theater, which was built in 1998. Hoodline, citing the city, reported that the annex reopened Sept. 16 after a renovation that ran from October 2025 through September 2026 and added 989 square feet, including a lobby, ticket office, green room, dressing rooms and performer restrooms the building had lacked. The city’s Oct. 2 release listed those same backstage rooms, plus a dedicated performer restroom, updated accessible public restrooms, an office with a ticket window, a lobby vestibule, security cameras and lighting, solar panels and battery storage, high-efficiency electric equipment, new fencing and landscaping, accessible ramps, railings and pathways, and a lighted marquee on the expanded building.
The Engineering and Capital Projects Department managed the $6.5 million job, the release said. Funding included a $3.3 million grant from the California State Library’s Building Forward Library Infrastructure Program and $1 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which Rep. Sara Jacobs said she helped secure. The annex is the only black-box theater the city owns and operates, and it offers free performances and classes. It can also open toward Officer Jeremy Henwood Memorial Park and function as an outdoor amphitheater, in partnership with Parks and Recreation.
Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera, who represents District 9, and Library Director Misty Jones both framed the project as an investment in City Heights as a place where residents can see free theater, music and dance. State Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson, in the same release, said the improvements would give “residents of all ages” an accessible place for the arts. The San Diego Public Library system, the city noted, serves more than 1.4 million people through the Central Library and 36 branches.
The dates in the two accounts are slightly different. Hoodline said the venue reopened Sept. 16. The city’s Oct. 2 release said the first event in the improved room was Sept. 26, and it listed an Autumn Lantern Festival on Oct. 3, a Día de los Muertos celebration on Oct. 31 and a performance of Shakespeare’s Macbeth on Nov. 20. Both agree the annex is the city’s only black-box theater, that admission is free, and that the room can open toward Officer Jeremy Henwood Memorial Park as an outdoor amphitheater.
