Summer Pops Likely to Move to Downtown Site : Symphony: Port commissioners give a warm reception to a plan to move the musical series from Mission Bay to Embarcadero Marina Park near the convention center.

Barring an unforeseen obstacle, the San Diego Symphony’s popular Summer Pops will relocate from Hospitality Point on Mission Bay to a patch of lawn on Embarcadero Marina Park on the bay near the new convention center.

All it will take is $150,000 from the Port District, an expenditure that was greeted Tuesday with a warm reception from the Board of Port Commissioners. The board supported the move but held off a final vote until next month to work out more details.

For many of the six years the Summer Pops has been at Hospitality Point it has been dogged by the noise of jets taking off from Lindbergh Field. The audience was as apt to hear the roar of a 727 as it was Gershwin music.

The noise has steadily worsened, and with activity at the busy airport increasing annually, it was clear to symphony officials that a new concert site was needed, said Wesley O. Brustad, the symphony’s executive director.

So, for two years, according to a letter Brustad sent to commissioners, the symphony has looked for another location, even conducting acoustical studies at several sites.

“The Summer Pops provides an essential bedrock of income without which the symphony would not be able to sustain its programs and maintain an orchestra of national stature as currently exists,” the letter said. “Summer Pops is vital to our livelihood and ultimate existence.”

The search for a new location led to Embarcadero Marina Park, a 22-acre peninsula with two separate arms--one next to Seaport Village and the other next to the convention center--that protect the marina in front of the Marriott Hotel. The $3.5-million park was completed in 1980 and features picnic areas, biking and jogging paths and a fishing pier.

The site the symphony wants is the southern arm of the park, close not only to the convention center but also the Chart House restaurant, which is in a renovated boat house nearly 90 years old.

Brustad calls it “the ideal location in terms of noise, bayfront setting, easy access from the freeway system.”

If the Board of Port Commissioners approves the $150,000 expenditure, it will build an amphitheater with a minimum of 4,000 portable seats that would be used from June through September, starting next year. By comparison, the Hospitality Point complex seats about 3,600, including those sitting on the lawn, and draws 125,000 to 150,000 people a year.

Fences and wind barriers also would be installed, as well as 30 portable toilets with sinks for the audience. The Port District would also have to level some of the grass area and build a cement parking and turnaround area.

Brustad told reporters Tuesday that he expects to present five to six concerts a week at the new facility. Although there may be significantly less airplane noise, there is a possibility of noise from Navy helicopters, which frequently travel up and down the bay. But Brustad said most of the concerts will be at night, when the Navy operates few helicopters.

Although most Port Commissioners seemed to favor the project, a few problems have to be worked out. First, there are concerns about parking, which Brustad said can be accommodated by private parking in the area and the use of a shuttle system as well as the large garage at the convention center, if it is available.

Second, Chairman Louis Wolfsheimer said he doesn’t like having to close the popular park for four months to accommodate the symphony. “That’s not the way to go,” he said.

The Port District’s staff is to analyze those concerns and other details, and report back to the commissioners next month.