The C.A.C. Was Built with Sustainability in Mind
From its scene shop to its P3 studio for filmmaking, podcasting, and more, the Centennial Arts Center was built to offer maximum flexibility and support for interdisciplinary learning. But that’s not all that’s remarkable about this new campus hub for the arts and creativity. A beautiful and harmonious addition to Concord Academy’s campus, this high-tech building is also 100% electric and is contributing in other significant ways toward reducing CA’s environmental footprint.
On April 16, 2025, Director of Operations Michael McSorley P’27 offered an informal tour of the C.A.C.’s sustainability features for students, faculty, and staff, along with science teacher and environmental sustainability and justice coordinator Chris Labosier. Demonstrating the 3D modeling program that allows insight into the real-time status of the plumbing, HVAC, and other operational systems (a tool with powerful educational potential), McSorley explained that the building is self-monitoring. Lights, heat, and air conditioning are programmed but also responsive to occupancy, automatically adjusting to conserve energy as people enter and leave each space.
Constructed to LEED Silver standards, the building is robustly insulated, its walls 15 inches thick with fully waterproof membranes, part of an integrated water management system. Much like in a museum, none of the oversized windows are operational—air quality is continuously monitored and fresh air, circulated. The building’s automated features also ensure that it is night-sky-friendly, darkening overnight.
McSorley said he expects the 46-kilowatt solar array on the roof to offset some campus energy demand—already substantially reduced by a recent conversion to all-LED lights in the SHAC. New EV car charging stations have also been installed nearby.
From the theater’s second-floor windows, the tour group looked out toward CA’s boathouse on the Sudbury River. In fall 2024, the grassy area before them had been sown with seeds that, over the next few years, will grow into a meadow to support native pollinators. There, workers were polishing new copper sheeting on the roof of a gazebo that had been moved from Munro House, a campus property across Main Street. Henry David Thoreau’s family once lived in that house and, rumor has it, the transcendentalist author once used the gazebo as a favorite space to read as a child. Soon it will offer the CA community a place for contemplation and observation of the local environment this new building is so very much a part of.
