|
The California Theatre
By Bruce Coons
Executive Director
January/February 2023
 c. 1940s California Theatre. Courtesy SOHO |
 c. 2008. Photo by Sandé Lollis |
Sometimes historic sites become endangered due to economic downturns or disasters that are out of anyone’s control. The California Theatre is a prime example of this. When the pandemic devastated the current owner’s business, bankruptcy was the unfortunate outcome.
The landmark’s current state of affairs has come about only after years of various indifferent ownerships, failed public policies, lack of vision, economic ups and downs, and the City of San Diego refusing to enforce its own demolition by neglect policies.
The California Theatre should be a poster child for community revitalization and a catalyst for redevelopment and healing in an area that has long been neglected by the city. Detractors have said that the effort to save the California Theatre has hindered providing new housing downtown, but they offer no evidence that this has ever occurred. No one can show a single housing project proposed for the site that has been delayed or stopped by the effort to preserve the theater. It has not happened.
By renovating the theater for a new use, such as affordable housing, new council chambers, etc., the project could be a restorative act for the entire C Street corridor and downtown as a whole. No serious economic or climate plan would suggest that demolition is the best use for this building.
It is SOHO’s mission to take the long view, to protect significant historical assets until cooler heads prevail, and the California Theatre is finally restored and rehabilitated as the great opportunity it is. The building is architecturally every bit as good as those from the 1915 Expo in Balboa Park and the downtown Santa Fe Depot. And, just like those buildings, the time will come when people say they can’t believe that shortsightedness had once almost demolished them.
If this area of downtown were to be stripped of the California Theatre’s architectural grace, it would be a sad downtown indeed, an architectural wasteland devoid of character and interest. We should not let that happen.
|
2024
2023
2022
2021
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
|
