Balboa Theater

The controversial effort to transform the historic Balboa Theater into a multimillion-dollar museum of modern art and design is dead, a victim of high costs and vigorous opposition from theater preservationists. Danah Fayman, founder of the proposed San Diego Art Center museum and president of the museum's board of directors, said Friday that the only thing left is to sign an official "termination agreement" with the Centre City Development Corp.

A 10-year program for the performing arts downtown that calls for rehabilitation of the privately owned Spreckels Theatre instead of the publicly owned Balboa Theater was unveiled before the City Council Thursday. The recommendation drew immediate fire from Balboa Theater preservationists, who called the study "irrelevant."

Preservationists Tuesday revealed a plan that could give the vacant, city-owned Balboa Theater a new lease on life as performing arts center. The plan, which envisions restoring and operating the Balboa as a legitimate theater, was distributed at a press conference by officials of the Balboa Theatre Foundation. Founded in September, the group is made up of those who want the Balboa preserved for theatrical use and have collectively pledged more than $20,000 toward that end.

Robert Yanes swears that if the time is right and you listen carefully, you can hear voices down in the dark and deserted basement dressing rooms of the old Balboa Theater. Yanes, a maintenance man at the Balboa for 11 years, thinks the voices and noises come from restless vaudevillians and others who long ago graced the Balboa's stage and basked in the ovation of a packed house of nearly 1,500 people.

In a month, the movie screen at the historic Balboa Theater will go dark. That was guaranteed Friday when the Centre City Development Corp. ordered the theater to close because it is likely to collapse in a major earthquake. The decision to shut the movie house was made after CCDC, the agency in charge of downtown redevelopment, received a letter from the city's building inspection department endorsing a recent engineering report on the theater's construction.

The historic Balboa Theater downtown should be closed because it would be unsafe in an earthquake, San Diego City Atty. John Witt has recommended. Witt's suggestion came after his office reviewed a recently completed engineering report on the theater, which has been the center of a controversy over whether it should be the home of the San Diego Art Center, including a museum and shops, or should be restored with a stage for live theater productions.

The controversy surrounding the future of the historic Balboa Theater in downtown San Diego took another twist Friday when a reluctant Centre City Development Corp. approved a $12,500 earthquake study on the 61-year-old building. Initial indications are that the theater is unsafe and could collapse in a major quake, possibly causing death or injury to patrons at the 1,500-seat facility, located adjacent to Horton Plaza on 4th Avenue.

The Centre City Development Corp. has recommended that the City Council issue $4.5 million in bonds to fund the conversion of the downtown Balboa Theater into a contemporary art museum. CCDC Executive Vice President Gerald Trimble recommended in a memorandum dated Aug.

The San Diego Art Center will have its own "temporary contemporary" exhibition space in Horton Plaza by the beginning of August, now that plaza developer Ernest W. Hahn Inc. has agreed to lease commercial space to the proposed museum for two years at $1 a year. The Art Center, which plans to make its permanent home in the renovated Balboa Theater by mid-1987, will occupy 9,100 square feet of temporary space just east of the plaza's main staircase.

Over the protests of preservationists, the San Diego City Council on Tuesday approved a plan to acquire the historic Balboa Theater, gut the interior and turn it into a retail center and art museum. The decision was a victory for arts patron Danah Fayman, who had spent two years and more than $500,000 planning the San Diego Art Center, a museum of modern architecture and design to be housed in the dome-topped, art deco-style theater at 4th Avenue and E Street.