The 83-year-old Saint Francis School in Manoa will have a new $369,000 gymnasium within the next few days that will provide opportunities for the first-ever home games for the school's volleyball and basketball teams.

Ground was broken yesterday to begin construction of a 7,000-square-foot Sprung Structure, a tent-like, semi-permanent dome built with an arched aluminum frame covered by an architectural membrane.

The structure is expected to be complete by the time students return to school Monday after winter break, school officials said in a news release.

The facility's bleachers will seat 420. There will be a new scoreboard, water coolers, lighting and a public address system.

The new gym replaces a smaller, similar structure that was big enough for physical education classes but not for hosting a home game or visiting teams in the Interscholastic League of Hawai'i.

The new Troubadome, so called because of the school's troubadour mascot, will be named after Sister Rose Annette Ahuna, who graduated from the school and has spent years serving it as a biology and religion teacher, mentor and role model for the girls, and health room coordinator and school liaison to the Saint Francis Booster Club.

Saint Francis has an enrollment of 422 girls in grades 6-12 and 38 faculty. It was founded in 1924 by the Franciscan Sisters of the Third Order, from Syracuse, N.Y.

Along with the new Ahuna Troubadome, a building at the back of the gym will house restrooms, showers and a new office for the athletic director. A second building will hold a weight room and equipment storage area.

The school also hopes to make the facility available to community groups for sporting and other events.

To complete the renovations to the school's athletic facilities, a 1960s-era outdoor clay practice court will be resurfaced and striped.

Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com.