Council Panel Seeks to Speed Availability of Balboa Park Museum Sites

Trying to accommodate six cultural institutions engaged in a high-stakes competition for space in Balboa Park’s historic House of Charm, a San Diego Council Committee on Wednesday asked City Manager John Lockwood’s office to explore a plan to speed up the availability of other park space.

But, even if technically possible, the plan, devised by Councilman Bob Filner, may run into political problems because it runs counter to one of Mayor Maureen O’Connor’s major goals for 1989, which she has declared the Year of the Child. The mayor wants to move the Children’s Museum of San Diego into the Prado’s 74-year-old House of Charm.

At Filner’s urging, the council’s Public Facilities and Recreation Committee asked Lockwood to determine whether the park’s Federal Building could be made available for relocation of the Children’s Museum by 1993. Current plans for the city’s $45-million restoration of Balboa Park buildings call for the Federal Building to be overhauled between 1994 and 1998.

Availability of the Federal Building would let the council meet the expansion needs of the Children’s Museum, the Mingei International Museum, the Old Globe Theatre and the San Diego Art Institute, all of which have been vying for space in the House of Charm.

“I think this can be a situation where everyone can win,” Filner said. “Cooperation is the key.”

Barbara Bry, president of the Children’s Museum, now cramped into La Jolla Village Square and demanding a new home as quickly as possible, said her organization would agree to occupy the Federal Building instead of the coveted House of Charm in the park’s core, if it is guaranteed a 1993 move-in date.

“For us, it’s timing. We’re turning away school groups today” because of lack of space and cannot wait until the mid-1990s for a larger home, she said.

But O’Connor, who has been lobbying hard to house the Children’s Museum in the House of Charm, was unenthusiastic about Filner’s proposal. She doubts a new home could quickly be found for the recreational activities now occupying the Federal Building and wants the Children’s Museum centrally located along the prestigious Prado.

“My No. 1 priority is the children,” O’Connor said in an interview. “I just don’t want to see them shunted aside.

“Frankly, if I didn’t go out and get the money from the Hotel-Motel Assn. (to finance renovation of the park’s buildings), this would be an academic discussion. I think they can all be accommodated. But our first priority should be the children.”

The Balboa Park overhaul is being financed by a 1-cent increase in the city’s hotel room tax that will generate $45 million through the issuance of bonds.

Under Filner’s plan, the Children’s Museum could be accommodated at the same time as the Mingei International Museum, which would move into the historic House of Charm in 1993.

The move would comply with the recommendations of a panel of experts organized to determine where the various cultural institutions should go.

The Old Globe, which is asking for more rehearsal space, would take over the House of Charm’s basement, and the San Diego Art Institute, which has been the dilapidated building’s sole tenant in recent years, would be allowed to stay.

Whatever the outcome, the San Diego Hall of Champions, now housed in 18,000 square feet in the Prado’s Casa de Balboa, appears headed for a major loss in the shuffle. According to President Jack Monger, the museum would lose a $4-million grant offered by an unidentified foundation to finance a major expansion if is not allowed to move into larger quarters.

“Both of the proposals leave us out in the cold,” Monger said.

Filner Proposal

Filner proposed Wednesday that the Hall of Champions be allowed to share the Federal Building with the Children’s Museum, but Bry said the museum is unwilling to share the facility.

Initiated in March, when the city asked for requests from cultural institutions that wanted to move into the House of Charm, the quest for more space has evolved into a political struggle that at times has pitted museums against each other.

The Children’s Museum, the Mingei, the Hall of Champions, the Art Institute, the Old Globe, the Institute of American Music and Worldbeat Productions all asked to be accommodated in the building, which will offer more than 40,000 square feet when renovations are completed.

An eight-member panel composed primarily of city officials evaluated the requests and chose the Mingei as the primary tenant for the House of Charm because it was willing to share space with the Art Institute and because its “ethnic diversity fits well with the international flavor of the House of Pacific Relations to the south and the Japanese Garden to the east.”

Additional Argument

In addition, the committee reasoned, the Children’s Museum would be better situated in the Federal Building, where children would have access to a large surrounding lawn for play and picnics. They would be safer without automobile traffic near the Palisades area facility.

The committee proposed putting Worldbeat Productions in a converted water tank in the park’s Pepper Grove area, near the Centro Cultural de la Raza, and working to find space for the Old Globe in the future. The music institute would not be accommodated in the park.

It also asked the San Diego Model Railroad Museum to move out of the Casa de Balboa basement to accommodate expansion of the Hall of Champions, a move that the museum, which has a long-term lease, rejected.

The Children’s Museum acquired a powerful ally when O’Connor in January declared 1989 the Year of the Child and listed creation of a children’s workshop and museum in the House of Charm as one of her goals.

On Sept. 21, O’Connor made a personal appearance before the city’s Park and Recreation board, which advises the council, asking for a vote against the recommendation to place the Mingei in the House of Charm. The panel, which O’Connor appoints, voted 7 to 1 to put the Children’s Museum in the building.

The appearance prompted Filner to accuse O’Connor of “distorting” the advisory process.

Deputy City Manager Coleman Conrad said he and the city’s bond advisers will determine whether sufficient revenue can be generated in the next four years to finance early renovation of the Federal Building, and will report back to the council as early as next week.