Political, fiscal developments derail plans for modernization<\/b><\/br> <\/br>Music-inspired paintings, a San Diego Watercolor Society reception, a picture exhibit at Pantaleoni Photography and goodies from Point Loma Tea and Chi Chocolat colored the Jan. 4 installment of Friday Night Liberty, the monthly festival that celebrates the arts and artisans at Point Loma\u2019s Liberty Station. Around 20 venues ply their trades at the free events, held every first Friday in the NTC Promenade\u2019s Arts and Cultural District, with anywhere from 500 to 800 guests in attendance. The festival is a good way for the businesses to strut their stuff, of course \u2014 but to hear NTC Foundation executive director Alan Ziter tell it, Liberty Station patronage would increase sevenfold except for one crucial element that stunts its growth. If the historic Luce Auditorium were online for performance, he said, “We\u2019d have 500 to 800 people seven nights a week,” and their discoveries wouldn\u2019t be limited to Friday Night Liberty\u2019s vendors. A renovated Luce is an idea whose time has come, just as it had in 2004, when Ziter assumed his current post. Built in 1941, the former seat of classroom instruction for thousands of Navy recruits at the former Naval Training Center (NTC) has also hosted a few weekend movies and shows headlining wartime luminaries like Bob Hope and Nat “King” Cole. The former NTC San Diego base, where the venue is located, opened in 1916 and was decommissioned and handed over to the city in 1997, with groundbreaking for new development taking place in 2001. The Luce, on the west side of Truxton Road north of Dewey Road, is 20,000 square feet in area and has 1,800 seats, which at first blush seems more than ample for an anchor performance venue \u2014 but several logistical concerns impede renovation. There\u2019s no lobby space; the wall-to-wall seating is too deep, the stage is too small and too high; acoustics are marginal and restrooms are lacking and out of date. A wave of public hearings and potential tenant input on the facility\u2019s best use have also weighed into the mix, which helped result in a Del Mar firm\u2019s 2008 feasibility study. The research was conducted at a cost of $65,000. “We concluded that we\u2019d like to accommodate local dance theater and a number of film festivals around the city,” Ziter said, pointing to activities like several ethnic f\u00eates and the area\u2019s popular 48-Hour Film Project, wherein competing groups write, produce and showcase movies from scratch over two days. “We\u2019d like three theaters within the existing facility, with 250 to 450 seats for two of them,” he said. The remaining stage would be a black-box affair, with a customizable seating plan. Mall-type walkways would abut the theaters to the sides with a main lobby in the middle of the floor. But four and a half years have passed since the feasibility study\u2019s conclusion \u2014 and Ziter weighed in when asked if he thought the lag was acceptable. “Not really,” Ziter said. “You have to remember that 2008 was the start of the Great Recession. When you\u2019re operating 27 buildings [on 28 acres], that becomes problematic. And we also lost the [city] redevelopment agency as a partner.” On Feb. 1, the San Diego Redevelopment Agency was dissolved, as were all state redevelopment agencies in a move to cut California\u2019s budget deficit. The local unit was an original planner of NTC with developer The Corky McMillin Cos. And in a private sector pressed for cash, the foundation\u2019s plans for the Luce have suffered drastically. “This is not like Balboa Park,” Ziter said, “where the city (as park owner) is responsible for maintenance and new projects. The [NTC] Foundation has to raise the money for the auditorium by itself, and the recession slowed things down in terms of donations. Resources are spread thin, and it\u2019s going to cost $15 million to $18 million to renovate the Luce the way we\u2019ll want it according to the study findings.” The expected total cost of the renovations at Liberty Station is $100 million. “Projects this size have a way of [reinventing] themselves,” Ziter said. “Look at the California Center for the Arts [in Escondido], which seems to be turning around now. Look at ECPAC,” the languishing East County Performing Arts Center, which the El Cajon City Council has taken another look at and may be edging toward renovating after many years of heated debate on its future. And look at Luce Auditorium, which temporarily has fallen victim to unforeseen political and fiscal circumstances. While Friday Night Liberty is a lively, colorful spectacle for and among community patrons, it\u2019s consigned to a life of its own as a lumbering economy and an administrative detour hold sway over the auditorium\u2019s intermediate future. For more on the Luce Auditorium and NTC, visit ntclibertystation.com or sandiego.gov\/ntc.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Political, fiscal developments derail plans for modernization Music-inspired paintings, a San Diego Watercolor Society reception, a picture exhibit at Pantaleoni Photography and goodies from Point Loma Tea and Chi Chocolat colored the Jan. 4 installment of Friday Night Liberty, the monthly festival that celebrates the arts and artisans at Point Loma\u2019s Liberty Station. Around 20 […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":283039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11561","_seopress_titles_title":"Curtain still waiting to rise for historic Luce Auditorium","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11551,11561],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-283038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-peninsula-beacon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}