Presidio Knolls School Pioneer Hall

The Presidio Knolls School was founded in 2008 as a preschool in the Marina district. The popular school quickly outgrew its original site and moved to its current location south of Market Street. With approximately 1.5 acres and multiple buildings, this former Catholic Archdiocese property will allow the school to continue to expand and reach its goal of serving preschool through eighth grade.

To accommodate the school’s growth, several buildings on campus were examined for renovation. The first to be selected was an existing contributing historic structure, renamed Pioneer Hall by the school. The renovation and repurposing of this existing, wood-framed building included a voluntary seismic upgrade, lowering of the main floor, improvements to the vertical and horizontal enclosures, and new interior finishes for initial use as temporary classrooms and for future use as a gymnasium and multi-purpose space. This required careful coordination between Plant, the shoring engineer, and structural engineer to keep the more than 100-year-old building standing while completing the complex structural upgrades.