Phantom of Plaza : Millions Are Sought to Renovate Old Balboa Theatre for New Role

Steve Karo has this vision. He dreams of the night when he can pull the switch backstage at the newly remodeled, state-of-the-art Balboa Theater and listen to the opening-night crowd, in all its finery, “ooh and ahh and just be dazzled by what they see.”

Karo has a long way to go.

The Balboa is a musty, spidery structure built in 1924. It has lain dormant for four years, since it stopped showing Clint Eastwood-like shoot-’em-ups to a movie crowd consisting mostly of sailors.

Almost everyone in touch with its fate, including Karo, co-founder of the Balboa Theater Foundation, says flatly that it will continue to lie dormant for at least two more.

In the meantime, it sits anachronistically, and stubbornly, even a bit forlornly, beside the shopping center at Horton Plaza.

Its primary use these days is as a backrest for the homeless souls who congregate on 4th Avenue. It awaits a make-over that even the most optimistic experts say will cost more than $5 million.

The figure most often bandied about, and the one quoted by its caretaker, Centre City Development Corp., is $11 million.

The problem, said CCDC projects director David Allsbrook, is that the building could not possibly endure a major earthquake.

“The fault lies in structural strengthening,” Allsbrook said. “It’s packed with this hollow clay tile. It has a post-and-beam concrete construction, and is very, very rigid. It simply does not comply with modern earthquake standards. It doesn’t give at all, so with any substantial quake, you could have a major disaster.”

But Allsbrook said the problems run much deeper than that.

“It needs completely new electrical work, plumbing, decor, fixtures,” he said. “It’s really in need . . . of just about everything.”

It does, however, have plenty of people who care about it, and, even in its present state, is not without charm. Its Spanish architecture celebrates a building with 1,500 seats (900 downstairs, 600 in a sloping balcony) that offers a deep stage, a proscenium fit for an orchestra and, according to those who should know, acoustics that tenors would kill for.

“The people who analyzed the building for us said it would be phenomenal for music,” said attorney Robert Purvin, one of 17 board members who represent the Balboa Theater Foundation.

The problem with the theater, as many in the local arts community point out, is not that no one wants it, but that everyone does. Some want it for live theater, others for music. Some want it for film, others as a museum housing painting and sculpture. Some want it for all of the above. In the absence of a consensus, the Balboa continues its slumber, and nothing happens.

And still more time passes.

Three years ago, a local group headed by La Jolla matron Danah Fayman dropped efforts to convert the theater into a multimillion-dollar museum of modern art and design. Fayman blamed the demise on high costs and stiff opposition from theater preservationists.

That would be Karo and the Balboa Theater Foundation, which lined up contributors who submitted a proposal to CCDC for renovation--and preservation--of the theater as a center for the performing arts. The package included endorsements from the Old Globe Theatre, the La Jolla Playhouse and Starlight Musical Theatre.

But, more than two years later, fund-raising efforts have just begun.

A percussionist by trade, Karo has beaten the drums to try to find money with which to save the crumbling edifice. He believes $3 million would make the building “earthquake-proof,” and another $4 million-$5 million would round out the renovation and give San Diego “a splendid showcase.”

To get started, the foundation has announced its first annual Festival Days, which begin May 18 as the kickoff to its prolonged campaign. For $10 a ticket, patrons can buy discount packages good for 10 days to dozens of shops and restaurants. Proceeds go toward the foundation, which hopes to raise $100,000 this year and triple the amount next year.

In the meantime, Karo and others would “love it,” as he put it, “if a Joan Kroc, or somebody, anybody , would surface” to guarantee the theater’s future. “We’d probably even name it for ‘em.”

He said the foundation hopes to attract a corporate or private donor, or donors, to provide the necessary money. The job won’t be easy, he said, particularly in an era of retrenchment and at a time when the city of San Diego is facing a $60-million deficit.

As CCDC’s Allsbrook candidly concedes, “It’s not a priority with our board to refurbish the building.”

And: “We won’t be willing to recognize any development that requires a public subsidy.”

Allsbrook said that, even if the millions are raised, there are two schools of thought on how the building should be run. One calls for a major tenant to fill most of its nights and oversee other events as well. Such an arrangement now governs at the Lyceum Theatre, which has the San Diego Repertory Theatre as primary tenant.

The other scenario calls for an operator to run the Balboa as an independent booking house, playing host to a variety of events spanning the arts.

Allsbrook said the Balboa is attractive not only for its prime location--next to Horton Plaza, in the center of downtown and with plenty of parking--but also for its compactness. The Civic Theatre has almost 3,000 seats, and, he said, the city has long needed a smaller venue for musical and theatrical events “that don’t work as well in such a great big place.”

The Balboa holds special appeal for the San Diego Civic Light Opera, also known as Starlight Musical Theatre, which Allsbrook said could emerge as the primary tenant. A spokesman for Starlight said the company has contemplated leaving Balboa Park’s Starlight Bowl, where productions are often interrupted, mid-lyric, by jet planes screaming overhead.

“Our board of directors voted last spring to tell the foundation that we would speak to them seriously about becoming the tenant, or one of the primary tenants, of the Balboa,” said Steve Bevans, general manager of Starlight. “We like the theater because of its size--1,500 seats is very attractive--but also because of its presence downtown.”

However, Bevans pointed out that Starlight has “not committed to any financial involvement in the renovation of the Balboa.”

So that leaves Karo and others wondering how they’ll get the money.

VanDuyn Ridgway, acting president of the foundation, said part of the group’s effort is “making the public aware that the theater even exists.

“We find that people who have lived in San Diego half a century don’t know anything about it,” Ridgway said. “And most of the people who have heard of the Balboa have never been in it.”

In the mid-’20s, the Balboa opened as a vaudeville house at the corner of E Street and 4th Avenue. In the 1930s, it was converted to a movie palace and stayed such until it was purchased by the city in 1985.

Ridgway and others believe that the Balboa is a relic well worth preserving, an institution that reminds longtime San Diegans of the past, but which, with the proper backing, can emerge as a focal point of the arts scene downtown.

“First of all, we want to restore the building,” he said. “And, we want it to remain a performing arts theater. Our objective is not to make it a movie house. It would be great for a variety of middle-of-the-road performances. It could be used for piano recitals, jazz concerts, chamber music, light opera, small plays, Lily Tomlin-type comedy shows, all sorts of things.

“We just want to get started, and the first thing we need is money.”