San Diego Version of ‘Lost in Space’ Stars 6 Groups in Search of Homes : The Arts: Organizations vying for performance and exhibit space find real estate is a valuable commodity where demand outstrips supply.

The emphasis on Star Wars may be diminished as a result of the federal government’s defense budget cuts, but the battle for space is still being fought in San Diego.

It’s not defense contractors doing battle, it’s a number of nonprofit arts organizations that are competing for a valuable commodity in this town--real estate.

No fewer than six groups are vying for space at two locations.

In Balboa Park, the Museum of Photographic Arts and the Mingei International Museum of World Folk Art are competing for the Casa de Balboa space now occupied by the Hall of Champions, which is almost certainly moving to the Federal Building.

And, in the Great American Bank Plaza being built across from the downtown Amtrak station, space that has been dedicated for arts use is being pursued by four organizations: the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, the Visual Arts Foundation, the Reuben H. Fleet Space Theater and the Bowery Theater. The space was at one time considered by both the Children’s Museum and MOPA.

The Children’s Museum pulled out of the Great American complex to pursue space in Balboa Park’s House of Charm, which it has since been granted by the City Council. And MOPA pulled out because an agreement for the museum’s needs could not be reached with the developers.

MOPA would like the Hall of Champions space next to the museum’s current home for an expansion, but there’s a catch: the Hall of Champions space has unofficially been dedicated to the Mingei, which has outgrown its quarters in University Towne Centre and had unsuccessfully sought space in the House of Charm.

Got that straight?

While that drama unfolds, the competition for the coveted Great American space is heating up.

Starboard Development Corp. and Great American are considering four proposals for their dedicated space. Because it is a Centre City Development Corp. project, the developers must set aside 1% of their construction budget for art.

Allocating exhibit or performance space is a departure from the more common practice of purchasing three-dimensional art in a new development.

But the Starboard developers chose to avoid buying art, knowing full well the controversies that often arise in choosing and placing such work.

“We’ve just chosen to do more of a living art exhibit, as opposed to sculpture or a statue,” said Starboard spokesman Gary Stougaard. “We’ve got about 40,000 feet of retail space, and the art component would take about 10,000 of that.”

Stougaard estimated the contribution to the art space would total at least $1.1 million. In addition to the Great American building, the complex will include a Guest Quarters Suite Hotel. Between the two structures, spanning C Street, is a pavilion that will serve as a trolley station with surrounding retail space. The dedicated art space is on the second floor of the pavilion and the entire complex is scheduled for completion at the end of 1991.

The La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art has a dual interest in the site: as a temporary home while its La Jolla facility is closed in early 1991 for an expansion expected to take 14 months and, following the expansion, as an adjunct downtown space, since the museum recently lost the lease on its former downtown gallery on G Street.

“Ideally, we’d need 5,000 square feet for exhibitions and 5,000 of administrative space,” said the museum’s director, Hugh Davies. “Long term, we want to maintain a downtown presence. My fondest hope is that we would be a strong enough presence to maintain a 5,000-square-foot space after we return to La Jolla.”

Davies is especially interested in the space because his first choice for a temporary home--the B Street Pier space renovated for the ill-fated Georgian icon exhibit at the Soviet arts festival--is apparently off limits.

“We offered to pay as much as $2,000 a month (for the pier space),” Davies said. “If there was a problem, we thought at least that would give us a leg up.”

Mayor Maureen O’Connor and members of the San Diego Unified Port District, which financed the pier space renovation to the tune of $700,000, had agreed that it would be used by various organizations after the festival. But former Port District Chairman Louis Wolfsheimer, who Davies thought was his strongest ally, said there was a problem with Davies’ request for an extended period.

“I don’t think we can lend it out for a long-term use,” said Wolfsheimer, before his resignation last month from the commission. “We didn’t build it to have someone exclusively use it for a long-term period. I think there will be other city and countywide events that will need it.”

Davies said that, in the long run, maybe the pier isn’t ideal.

“Some things we do may be too controversial,” he said, a reference to the Port District’s rocky history with commissioning public art projects.

Another clue to the pier’s unavailability came when the mayor returned recently from a trip to the Soviet Union and announced that she had reached tentative agreement with the director of the Armory Museum for three Soviet exhibitions at the pier.

Meanwhile, three organizations are vying with the La Jolla Museum for the Great American space.

The Bowery Theatre, which is housed in a 76-seat house in the Kingston Hotel (believed to be the smallest Equity theater in the country), is looking for a larger space.

“We have a verbal agreement to manage the Kingston space for the next three years, but this does not represent a permanent home by any means,” said the theater’s managing director, Mickey Mullany. “We’re definitely still pursuing permanent space.”

The Reuben H. Fleet Space Theatre and Science Center is interested in the site as an adjunct to its museum in Balboa Park.

“In terms of our own master planning, it represents an opportunity to do something that we had not planned until the year 2000,” said Jeffrey Kirsch, executive director of the space center. “Our focus would be to have a high-tech motion picture theater for relatively small audiences--about 150-200 people--and space for state-of-the-art exhibits. Whoever is involved has a great opportunity.”

Also in the running is the Visual Arts Foundation, which wants to operate a cinematheque--a theater dedicated to showcasing motion pictures other than first-run features, in a museum setting.

“We want to have a complex for a cinema center that would house two to three auditoriums, a cafe, gift shop and poster gallery,” said foundation Executive Director Andy Friedenberg, who also operates the for-profit Cinema Society. (Both of Friedenberg’s enterprises offer their programs at the La Jolla museum.) “We would put on film programs ranging from children’s series, festivals, tributes, faculty and student films, and classics.”

However, the foundation and the space theater may both face some of the same roadblocks MOPA encountered. The photo museum wanted to start a film program to complement its photographic mission, but the space wasn’t big enough, according to MOPA Executive Director Arthur Ollman.

“What we need can’t really be accommodated well in that space,” Ollman said. “We needed a 350-400 seat theater, suitable height clearances and a facility that was available day and night. Unfortunately, through all of our best efforts on both sides, it wasn’t able to come about.

“I’d love to have the Hall of Champions space, if and when they decide to move out. But it’s already been promised to the Mingei. But, if (the Mingei) found something they liked better, it would solve all our problems.”

According to Hall of Champions board member Ron Fowler, there’s a “very high probability” they will move. Architectural and engineering studies have been done, and the funds for their proposed move and expansion are in place.

As for the Mingei, it first balked at the 18,000-square-foot Hall of Champions space when it lost out on the House of Charm, where it had hoped to have most of the available 48,000 square feet. But now, Mingei Executive Director Martha Longenecker seems willing to accept the smaller space, leaving the photo museum in limbo.

Stay tuned for another adventure of “Lost in Space.”