Neither organization could raise the money to restore the building. But while performing arts groups and presenters proposed other schemes that sputtered, the foundation in 1992 secured the theater's spot on the National Register of Historic Places.
"Every step of the way," said Welton Jones, who was then theater critic for the San Diego Union and Union Tribune, "someone came along who saved the building as a theater. Over time, CCDC's Dave Allsbrook did a 180-degree turn and became the hero of this story."
'Personality' restored
Allsbrook said that when he toured other historic American theaters and saw "how much nicer ours was," he decided to "baby-sit" the building. He removed a water tower that endangered the fly loft and fire escapes that invited vagrants, doing "rudimentary maintenance" until a publicly backed restoration could occur.
When CCDC approved that restoration in 2002, Allsbrook was the agency's vice president for contracting and public works. He hired Bosse, who engaged Westlake's firm for the restoration. Westlake partnered with San Diego's Heritage Architecture and Planning, whose president, the once-skeptical preservation expert David Marshall, credits CCDC with restoring not only the theater elements that were there but also "those that had been gone for decades," including an elaborate mural in the second-floor lobby and an expensively embossed curtain.
With its whimsical grottos, audacious colors and human scale, the Balboa has "its own personality, its own DNA," said Westlake, adding that his firm chose "vitality, vibrancy and exaggeration" in the restoration. "It's like something you'd find in Seville or other areas of Moorish Spain. The building thus feels anchored to San Diego's climate and history -- and that creates its sense of meaning for the city."
