La Jolla Art Museum Considers Move to Downtown S.D.

The La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art is exploring the possibility of relocating to a new, larger bayside site downtown, The Times has learned.

The museum board of directors and commissioners of the San Diego Unified Port District are discussing a move to the 5.3-acre G Street “mole,” a man-made peninsula that extends into San Diego Bay north of Seaport Village.

According to a statement issued Thursday in response to Times inquiries, the museum board is studying the G Street site “and other alternatives, including the expansion (of the museum) at its present site.” However, the statement continues, the museum’s board members “are particularly attracted by the architectural potential of the bayside site at the center of the San Diego metropolitan area.”

Port Commission Chairman William Rick confirmed that museum board members have been in contact with most of the port commissioners. Those who have been contacted, Rick said, have “expressed enthusiasm that such a magnificent cultural activity might be located within the port.” Rick has requested that museum representatives appear soon before the Port Commission to explore the prospect.

“The commission has decided that we wanted to have a low level of commercial activity on G Street and a higher level of public use, so this would fit in beautifully,” Rick said. The G Street property is state-owned and is the site of the American Tunaboat Assn. headquarters, a Chinese restaurant, a fish market and berths for tuna boats and other commercial vessels.

Attorney Christopher Calkins, treasurer of the museum board, stressed the preliminary nature of the board’s interest in the G Street site and described it as one of several options. According to Calkins, the museum may ultimately choose to remain at its 2.2-acre site at 700 Prospect St. in La Jolla with no expansion, remain at the site and expand it, or move to a new site.

Calkins would not detail site possibilities other than the G Street mole, but he did not rule out possible museum expansion near UC San Diego or the possibility of a remote annex or adjunct to the La Jolla site. He also would set no time frame for the possible move to G Street.

Calkins said the financial impact of a move is “just something we don’t know.”

He did acknowledge that the growth of the museum’s permanent collection has put increasing pressure on the museum to expand.

“We have a first-rate national collection that we can’t display when we have shows present,” Calkins said. “Nor can we exhibit all of our collection at any time, so we need to see if it makes sense to try and make it more accessible to the public.”

One question raised by the possibility of the museum’s downtown relocation would be its impact on the proposed San Diego Arts Center, which plans to renovate and expand upon the historic Balboa Theatre, 4th Avenue and E Street, in the corner of the Horton Plaza shopping center. The Arts Center plans to open as a major contemporary art museum in 1986.

The Arts Center board is led by arts patron Danah Fayman and former La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art director Sebastian (Lefty) Adler, both of whom recommended several years ago that the La Jolla museum move downtown. Fayman had been a longtime member of the La Jolla museum board until her resignation two weeks ago, in reaction to the board’s decision to explore the G Street site.

“I think it (the G Street site) is kind of close,” she said. “You’d have two museums doing ostensibly the same thing in the same neighborhood, and that seems repetitious. But at this point, we can’t gauge the effect on (the Arts Center) at all. It all depends on how far along we are by the time they do anything definite.”

“We’re clearly supportive of all other arts institutions,” Calkins said. “And this is all so preliminary, I can’t comment on how the museum’s relation to the Arts Center would be, but we feel there’s a synergism among the city’s arts organizations.”

Arthur Skolnik, who heads the Gaslamp Quarter Assn., a visible force in the downtown redevelopment surge, had a mixed reaction to the prospect of the museum’s bayside move.

“If both (the La Jolla museum and San Diego Arts Center) were already downtown, that would be fantastic,” he said. “But if someone said put your bucks or support in one or the other, I’d have to ask which one does me the most good? And I hope we don’t get into an either/or situation.

“The Arts Center is very close to the Gaslamp Quarter, true, but then I just wouldn’t put a museum (on the G Street site). I think the (La Jolla museum board’s) possible move is not one based on becoming part of San Diego’s cultural revitalization, but a very selfish decision based on economic planning.”

But Gerald Trimble, executive director of the Centre City Development Corp., which supports the San Diego Arts Center plan, said, “It means that downtown has arrived as an important place for cultural facilities.”

“But I don’t know if there’s a fair chance of (the museum’s relocation) happening or not. And I don’t see the Port Commission doing something to create a problem for downtown San Diego.”