Children’s Museum Wins Coveted Space in Balboa Park

The Children’s Museum of San Diego, backed by a powerful ally in Mayor Maureen O’Connor, won the lion’s share of space in Balboa Park’s coveted House of Charm in a showdown Monday among local cultural institutions.

In a unanimous compromise decision, the City Council directed that the museum share space in the 74-year-old building with the San Diego Art Institute. The Old Globe Theatre also may win rehearsal space in a sub-basement if City Manager John Lockwood’s office determines that digging another level is technically and economically feasible.

The big loser in an afternoon of sometimes contentious debate at the council meeting was the Mingei International Museum of World Folk Art, which had been recommended as primary tenant of the prestigious House of Charm by an eight-member panel composed primarily of city officials.

Instead of gaining most of the 48,000 square feet in the House of Charm, the Mingei appears headed for 18,000 square feet in the Casa de Balboa, or possibly for a newly excavated basement in the Federal Building.

“In no way will this give us the space we need for our museum,” said Martha Longenecker, founder and director of the Mingei, who said the museum needs 50,000 square feet to house its exhibits and had hoped to receive 30,000 to 35,000 square feet in the House of Charm.

Longenecker predicted that the museum will use the Case de Balboa as auxiliary space.

Barbara Bry, president of the Children’s Museum, endorsed a plan outlined by Councilman Ron Roberts that would give that museum about 40,000 square feet in the House of Charm and leave 7,500 feet for the Art Institute, 1,500 of that at street level. The Children’s Museum is now in cramped quarters in the La Jolla Village Square shopping center and turning away visitors.

“We do believe we belong in the center of Balboa Park,” said Bry, who, after a hearing Sept. 27, had said that the Children’s Museum could accept quarters in the Federal Building, in the park’s Palisades area. “We do truly believe that.”

Testimony on the subject lasted more than two hours, at times punctuated by intimations that the issue boiled down to a competition between art lovers and child advocates, because of the possibility that the Children’s Museum might dislodge the Art Institute, which occupies the only currently habitable portion of the House of Charm, a space of about 6,000 square feet.

Up for grabs was space along Balboa Park’s prestigious and heavily traveled Prado, home to most of the city’s top art and cultural institutions. Some of the route’s crumbling buildings, created for expositions in 1915 and 1935, are due for a $45-million renovation financed by a 1-cent increase in the city’s hotel room tax.

Throughout the debate, the Children’s Museum had the backing of O’Connor, who, in her January State of the City address, declared 1989 the Year of the Child in San Diego and listed creation of a children’s workshop and museum in the House of Charm as one of her goals.

O’Connor made an unusual appearance before the city’s Park and Recreation Board on Sept. 21 to successfully lobby for a recommendation on behalf of the Children’s Museum. On Monday, she told a packed council chamber, “I feel very strongly about it--we have to make children a very high priority in this community.

“If it means that someone has to get hurt in the (space allocation) process, I have to state for the record, it’s not going to be the children, in my opinion,” O’Connor said.

The council declined to support Roberts’ proposal, deleting specific numbers on the amount of space each institution would receive in the House of Charm and instructing Lockwood to set up negotiations among the Children’s Museum, the Art Institute and the Old Globe.

The Children’s Museum move would be accomplished by 1993, the same time the Federal Building would be available under the refurbishment plan.

The San Diego Hall of Champions, which has been promised a $4-million grant by an unidentified foundation to finance a major expansion, would move to the Federal Building. That will require the city to accelerate construction of one and perhaps two municipal gymnasiums to allow for relocation of the recreational activities now situated in the Federal Building.

The Mingei, now housed in just 6,000 square feet in the University Towne Centre shopping mall, would move to the Hall of Champions’ spot in the Casa de Balboa.

The staff recommendation also proposes placing Worldbeat Productions in a converted water tank in the park’s Pepper Grove area, near the Centro Cultural de la Raza. However, the council did not address that issue Monday.