Art Center Cuts Back as Developer Bows Out

San Diego Art Center officials announced plans Wednesday to sharply curtail its activities and to go it alone in revamping the old Balboa Theatre at Horton Plaza after developer Chris Mortenson bowed out of a project to turn the building into an art museum.

Redevelopment officials predicted that opposition by theater groups and historical preservationists will resurface when the Art Center’s revised project comes up for public hearings this fall. Save Our Heritage Organisation and several theater groups have sought to preserve the original interior of the old theater rather than gutting the building to create an art museum, an auditorium and offices. Both art and theater groups agree that the exterior of the structure will remain unchanged.

L.J. Cella, newly named chief executive officer of the Art Center, said that the center board has decided to substantially cut staff and current operations and to join with the Center City Development Corp., the city’s downtown redevelopment agency, to complete the $7.5-million Balboa Theatre reconstruction project by 1989.

Cella, a vice president at Nuffer, Smith, Tucker Inc. public relations, said that the 13-member Arts Center staff will be cut to three. Sebastian “Lefty” Adler will remain as director of program and exhibit development, and Cella will assume administrative duties. The Art Center bookstore will be closed and the temporary mini-museum in the Horton Plaza Shopping Center will remain open until the end of September, Cella said.

Mortenson, who had agreed to reconstruct the old theater building into an art gallery and 16,000 square feet of street-level retail space, announced last month that he planned to withdraw from the development agreement after revenue-producing retail space was reduced to less than 5,000 square feet, Cella said.

If CCDC and city officials approve the Art Center’s plans and grant a $2.5-million loan to the arts group in August, directors will launch a major fund-raising drive to raise an additional $2 million in donations for the project, he said. An anonymous donor has offered a $500,000 grant if $1.5 million in private donations are achieved.

Cella said that a banking consortium has given informal approval to a $3-million loan for the redevelopment project, completing the needed financing.

David Allsbrook, CCDC’s projects director, said that the redevelopment agency would agree to allow Mortenson to withdraw from the development agreement, but would have to draw up new agreements with the Art Center and hold public hearings on the revised Balboa Theatre restoration plans. Allsbrook predicted that renewed opposition to the Art Center project plans to remodel the interior of the historic building would likely surface at the public hearings on the proposal.

CCDC board member Janay Kruger said that a board subcommittee had been working with the arts group board on the new plan and directors generally were in agreement with the Art Center revisions. She expressed doubt that “either the Art Center or CCDC has anyone on staff qualified to supervise a construction project of that size.” She added that her “only concern at this point is whether the plan is economically feasible.”

Kruger said she was surprised that the Art Center board had decided to close down its Horton Plaza museum and bookstore operated in a 9,000-square-foot space rented for $1-a-year from developer Ernest Hahn. Kruger said the temporary museum had proved to be a popular adjunct to the downtown commercial center.

Cella said that the Art Center board, headed by Danah Fayman, had voted to demonstrate its commitment to the new Balboa Theatre museum project by cutting monthly expenses from an average of $50,000 to about $18,000. Board members have pledged to pay all operating expenses, he said, to guarantee that all funds raised in future months will go to reconstruct the Balboa Theatre building. The cutback will require closure of the present museum when the exhibit of architect Irving Gill’s designs closes at the end of September.