The Durham Performing Arts Center is a 2,800 seat proscenium theater, designed to accommodate touring stage shows, concerts, and locally produced performances. Scheduled for completion in the fall of 2008, the facility is also the primary stage for Duke University’s celebrated American Dance Festival. The project is set in the American Tobacco Historic District, a ten acre, mixed-use development that includes multi-family housing, upscale retailing, and premium office space.

The theater combines a simply composed, highly efficient theatrical house with a dramatic, multi-level public lobby. Movement upward through the lobby is animated by two grandly scaled staircases that wrap the building's perimeter. The building’s façade is clad in a thinly drawn curtain wall that features an interplay of clear and fritted insulating glass, focusing attention on prominent interior features of the building, particularly those that frame significant views outward to cityscape.

The Performing Arts Center is projected to have a powerful impact on the economic development of this area of downtown Durham. Moreover, because the project was designed at a significantly lower cost than that required for other comparable venues, it will be an affordable setting for local theater and performance organizations. In addition, proceeds from the theater’s naming rights campaign will be shared with area arts organizations, including the Carolina Theatre, the Durham Arts Council, and the Hayti Heritage Center.

Recently, DPAC has won the 2009 Durham Golden Leaf Award for design excellence, the 2009 Triangle Commercial Real Estate Women's Champion Community Enhancement Award, and the 2009 AWI Architectural Woodwork Institute Award for Excellence for interior woodworking and cabinetry (Awarded to Triangle Casework).