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Encore, Encore

The curtain rises again at downtown’s Balboa Theatre

BY JULIA BEESON

FOR YEARS, innumerable tourists and locals have breezed past the shrouded façade of the Balboa Theatre, rarely noticing the once-thriving cultural center at the corner of Fourth Avenue and E Street. Through a major, $26.5 million renovation effort that began in the summer of 2005, Centre City Development Corporation is returning the spotlight to the long-defunct theater, set to reopen at the end of the month. While much of the building’s original grandeur and integrity was restored (listed on the Register of Historical Places, it was revamped in accordance with strict standards set forth by the Secretary of the Interior), the structure was also modernized to function as a contemporary, big-city performing arts venue.

Opened in 1924 by the Balboa Building Company, the 1,524-seat venue cost $80,000 to build. It was host to nationally recognized vaudeville acts and major movie stars throughout the ’20s. In 1930, the theater was renamed El Teatro Balboa and began showing Spanish-language films and stage productions. During World War II, the Navy housed sailors in the building, which, in 1959, was transformed into an action-movie venue.

Over the next two decades, the building fell into decline as numerous attempts by various private parties failed to revive the theater. In 1985, CCDC, the city’s downtown redevelopment agency, acquired the property by eminent domain. But it wasn’t until October 2002 that the CCDC board authorized the rehabilitation of the historic venue. The following year, architectural firm Westlake Reed Leskos ky began the design phase, and in July 2005 a seismic retrofit bolstered the building’s foundation.

Renovation and restoration began in early summer 2006 and is expected to be completed at the end of November. CCDC is hosting an opening gala to raise funds for the new performing arts center, which they anticipate will breathe new life—and old charm—into San Diego’s theater district.