A new breed of entertainment venue comes to the East Village

By Logan Broyles | Downtown News

Ty Hauter knows a thing or two about the San Diego nightlife scene, having spent the past two decades establishing himself as a developer and co-owner of numerous bars and nightclubs all over the County.

Odds are if you’ve been out on the town in San Diego you’ve passed through a venue that Hauter has had a hand in, from Double Deuce to the Tipsy Crow, Bootlegger, Bub’s at the Ballpark, the original Whiskey Girl, and even the Wavehouse in Mission Beach, where he was one of the original developers.

Leave it to a guy that knows so much about the hospitality industry to decide to turn the whole concept on its ear. Hauter’s latest venture is an ambitious project that tries to redefine what an entertainment venue can be.

Block No. 16 Union & Spirits isn’t quite a nightclub, a bar, or a concert venue; it’s a blend of all three, with the ability to host large scale events thrown in for good measure.

“Can a facility flip itself overnight and be something else?” Hauter asked.

“I was looking at a lot of the larger venues and I just thought that they were kind of one dimensional for the most part.

“We’re trying to create an all-encompassing entertainment venue, which means that some days it will be regional and national concerts, some days it will be more of a nightclub-style format, and other days we’ll be hosting large scale events like the one we just hosted for Comic Con,” Hauter explained.

“It’s a 20,000 square foot venue so we can do a lot of different things on different days.”

The core of Block 16 will be the weekends, beginning with live music on Thursday nights followed by two nights of a nightclub format.

A pair of rotating DJs man the mixers every night, backed up by a massive light show on a 35′ by 25′ LED wall that is larger than the Jumbotron at Petco Park. Hauter is aiming to reel in world-renowned DJs and bands to give the venue a great live music and club scene.

“The facility is set up to be totally universal, so if you were trying to do a country concert in it one night or an electronic dance party the next night, the backdrop of what the venue is would fit both events,” Hauter said.

Early in the week the venue will focus on hosting private events for a wide range of customers, from corporate events all the way down to Bar Mitzvahs and wedding parties.

“We’ve had some upscale events with larger corporations around San Diego, whether they want us to be a Dave and Busters type environment with games and things like that or a 50’s Sock Hop like one company has already asked for,” Hauter said. “I wanted to put something together that had a very urban feel to it with lots of levels, but still had a lot of warmth and was compact enough that it was comfortable and feels full whether you have 300 people or 2,000 people in it.”

The venue has already hosted a Comic Con party and is currently in the midst of negotiating a three-year contract to make it an annual occurrence.

Block No. 16 Union & Spirits opened on June 20 and is located at the Culy Warehouse in the East Village right near the Ballpark. The venue was created by Hauter’s design and consulting firm, Good Time Design, with a max capacity of just over two thousand people.

Hauter’s next move is taking over Fleetwood right next door to Block 16 and remodeling the venue into a whole new concept, creating what he hopes will be a revitalized one-stop nightlife block right next to the Ballpark.

Contributing writer Logan Broyles is the former managing editor of Pacific San Diego Magazine and Editor-in-Chief of Construction Digital magazine. He likes to write about music and news and can be reached at [email protected].