Firm Hired to Find Operator to Reopen Balboa Theatre

The Centre City Development Corp. has voted to award a $65,000 contract to a Connecticut-based consulting firm to find a full-time operator for the Balboa Theatre, which has been dormant since 1986.

By a 6-0 vote, the board on Friday approved the hiring of AMS Planning & Research Corp., which will recommend a full-time operator for the theater that opened in 1928 as a movie and vaudeville house.

CCDC set a timetable calling for the agency to hire the full-time operator by mid-1993 and begin renovation of the theater in 1994, with reopening in July, 1995. Final approval on these decisions rests with the San Diego City Council.

Irma R. Munoz, a spokeswoman for CCDC, said that, after the operator is hired, the redevelopment agency will decide how best to allocate the funds for restoration of the theater. A 1988 CCDC study assessed the cost of renovation at $10.9 million.

More optimistic assessments place the cost around $5 million. The building was closed shortly after being purchased by the city in 1985 because it fails to comply with modern earthquake standards and is thought to be structurally unsound.

Several arts organizations--the La Jolla Playhouse, the Visual Arts Foundation of San Diego, Starlight Musical Theatre, the Pasadena Playhouse and the agency that books the city-owned Civic Theatre--have expressed interest in running the Balboa.

The long-range arrangement for the Balboa would be similar to the one between the San Diego Symphony and the old Fox Theatre, which was renovated and renamed Copley Symphony Hall, with the symphony as primary tenants and full-time overseers.

The Balboa, with 1,500 seats, prized acoustics and a prime location next to the Horton Plaza shopping mall, has long been considered the most valuable of several aging theaters in San Diego and the one whose renovation would be most beneficial to the city.

David Allsbrook, projects manager for CCDC, said recently that the full-time operator would shoulder all managerial expenses and book the theater year-round, whether it does so by producing its own events or hiring outside groups to fill available performance nights.

“There are so many ifs,” said Paul Desrochers, the assistant vice president of CCDC, who sounded a cautionary note about whether the theater could indeed be reopened, especially during an economic downturn.

“One of the major things we have to do is find an entity (a full-time operator) that can establish a permanent endowment fund, and then we have to work closely with the City Council,” Desrochers said.

“Our board made it fairly clear that we’re not quite sure about the economics here--this is going to be a tough one. We’ve known all along that it’s going to be a difficult process, and the timetable set forth is going to depend on quite a few variables all going our way.”

Desrochers said that “favorable reconstruction costs” will be a factor, and that much of the funding for renovation may have to come from private sources. “But finally, there’s some movement, and we’re all very excited about that,” he said.