Will Curtain Go Up Again at the Balboa? : Group Has Plans to Renovate and Reopen Landmark Theater

Preservationists Tuesday revealed a plan that could give the vacant, city-owned Balboa Theater a new lease on life as performing arts center.

The plan, which envisions restoring and operating the Balboa as a legitimate theater, was distributed at a press conference by officials of the Balboa Theatre Foundation.

Founded in September, the group is made up of those who want the Balboa preserved for theatrical use and have collectively pledged more than $20,000 toward that end. Foundation President Toni Michetti said a restored theater, if properly staffed and managed, might be booked every night of the year as a “rental house.”

Michetti said running the Balboa as a rental theater would be less costly than operating it as a producing house, in which the theater would bear the costs of a producing a play.

The plan would limit the cost of operating the 1,400-seat theater to payment of utilities, staff, administration and promotions. Those costs would total about $300,000 a year, foundation officials said. The organization proposes to lease the theater from the city for $1 a year.

The foundation has 10 board members and a list of 15 advisers, including Sports Arena President Vincent R. Ciruzzi, former state Sen. James Mills, Port Commissioner William Rick and San Diego Opera General Manager Ian Campbell. Foundation officials say membership totals 100.

Michetti called the theater “too precious a structure to be used for something else,” referring to previous plans to convert it into an art museum.

In 1983, the Centre City Development Corp., the city’s redevelopment arm, approved the museum idea. An agreement between CCDC and developer Chris Mortenson was signed to undertake the conversion, and the primary tenant of the revamped building was to be an organization called the San Diego Art Center.

Last year, the Art Center, burdened with more than $650,000 in debts, closed its gallery and bookstore in Horton Plaza, and its plans for the Balboa went into limbo.

On Tuesday, Art Center founder Danah Fayman said she is encouraged that the foundation has a plan to restore the theater. “We looked at the costs (of restoring and running the theater as a museum) and they’re pretty fantastic: $7.5 million (a year),” she said. However, Fayman stopped short of saying the Art Center had given up plans to convert the Balboa.

Michetti said the Balboa Theatre Foundation would raise funds

to match those from the city for restoration of the theater. The city has budgeted $2.5 million for the Balboa.

A key to the Balboa Foundation’s plan is a poll taken of local arts organizations and theater groups. Each group was asked to indicate how many days a year it might rent a renovated Balboa. When figures from all the organizations were added up, it came to 500 days in a year.

Foundation spokesman Steve Karo was asked why, if there was such a demand for theater space, two other downtown theaters of the same size, the Spreckels and California, aren’t regularly rented.

“Neither of those theaters is restored,” Karo replied. “They have their own problems of age and plumbing. Neither has a manager who aggressively pursues (bookings). The city already owns the Balboa. That should be its priority. We’re halfway there. All we need is their cooperation.”

The foundation’s proposal includes four plans to restore the theater and bring it up to building code requirements. They range in cost from an estimated $2.5 million to $6.7 million.

The proposal also includes budgets for the first five years of theater operations, beginning in 1991. The operating projections show initial expenses of $300,000 a year, growing to $440,000 in 1995.

On Thursday, the City Council will receive a study it commissioned on the demand for downtown theater space. Among theaters covered in the report are Symphony Hall, the Civic Theatre, the Balboa, the California, the Spreckels and the Lyceum. The California, Spreckels and Balboa seat 1,400 to 1,500.

The foundation’s plan calls for the city to underwrite the theater for five years with transient occupancy tax funds, beginning with $100,000 the first year and declining each succeeding year.

The plan also calls for rents ranging from $700 to $1,500 a day. Those fees had not been calculated when the local theater groups were polled. When theater groups were told by a reporter Tuesday about the rental costs, all backed off from their earlier predictions on renting the Balboa.

“At this point that would be definitely above our budget,” said Martin Gerrish, head of Octad-One Production Inc., a community theater group that had indicated it might use the Balboa 36 days a year. “We couldn’t possibly afford that. It would have to be $500 or less before we could use it.”

“That’s a wide spread,” said Lamb’s Players Theatre director Robert Smyth. Lamb’s had said it might use the theater 35 to 42 days a year. “When you’re looking at that lower end, that’s something we would have an interest of looking into further.” However, Smith said the Balboa is really too big for his theater’s needs. “If it were 600 seats, we would snap at it,” he said.

Michetti said the foundation hopes to present its case for restoring the Balboa to the City Council in a few weeks.

“For the first time, the Balboa is at a physical position whose time has come,” Michetti said, referring to the theater’s location at E Street and 4th Avenue, which for years was considered “south of Broadway,” an undesirable area. Now the theater is adjacent to the prestigious Horton Plaza shopping mall.