The historic San Francisco Art Institute is going to be undergoing a renovation in the coming year, and it's now looking like it will re-emerge in a few years' time as an arts organization and studio facility, the exact details of which are still to be revealed.

As the Chronicle reports, local preservation architecture firm Page and Turnbull filed for approvals today with the SF Planning Department for a project to renovate and restore both the older, 99-year-old, Spanish-style building designed by Bakewell & Brown, and the 1969 Brutalist addition attached to it — both of which have been showing some wear.

Page and Turnbull has been hired, along with SoMa-based Jensen Architects, by the nonprofit BMA-Institute, or BMAI, to work on the reimagining of the abandoned campus, with Page and Turnbull working to preserve the historic buildings, and Jensen working to redesign parts of the interiors. While last summer, when Jensen was hired, things were still pretty nebulous when it comes to the campus's future use, things appear to be coming into focus, and BMAI is expected to make a formal announcement in the coming months.

Led by philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Steve Jobs, the nonprofit has said it wants to help spark a "renewed arts renaissance" in the city with this project, and it now says it will feature a visual arts program "rooted in studio practice," but it won't be an accredited school, per the Chronicle.

There are plans to restore a couple of studios on the property to serve as temporary residences for an artists-in-residence program, the paper reports — and the property is zoned for up to three of these residences. And some former offices and administrative spaces overlooking a central courtyard are likely to be turned into art studio space as well.

A small library is going to be turned into a private study area. And the main entrance is going to be renovated, allowing public access to the famed 1930 mural by Diego Rivera, The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City — a piece whose value is estimated at $50 million, more than the $30 million that Powell Jobs paid for the property last year.

A new name for the institution is also likely to be part of the upcoming announcement.

The San Francisco Art Institute closed in 2022 after 152 years, and declared bankruptcy a year later, after several attempts were made to save the school — including a merger deal that was discussed with USF.

The school had apparently been struggling with declining enrollment since before the pandemic, and financial mismanagement had been at play as well. The school had almost $20 million in debt that was purchased by the UC Board of Regents in 2020, under the stipulation that it would be recouped from a property sale if the school were no longer going to exist as a school.

It had once been an illustrious and respected arts college, with a long list of famous faculty and alumni including Richard Diebenkorn, Stan Brakhage, Annie Liebowitz, Kathryn Bigelow, Jeremy Fish, David Ireland, Catherine Opie, and Ansel Adams.

Previously: SF Art Institute Will Live On After Finding a Buyer, and It’s That Group Led By Laurene Powell Jobs