Liberty Station, the decades-long transformation of San Diego’s huge Naval Coaching Heart right into a mixed-use neighborhood and cultural district, is a welcome reprieve from a lot of Southern California’s fragmented sprawl. Due to its Nineteen Twenties-era Spanish Revival buildings, arched colonnades and broad public promenades, visiting it seems like stepping again to a time when walkability and easy magnificence had been the norm. To get an image in your head, rewatch the unique “Top Gun” for NTC’s cameo when Tom Cruise’s Maverick rides towards the home of Kelly McGillis’ Charlie alongside the complicated’s Roosevelt Street with the arcaded buildings completely framing the shot.
Regardless of its legacy and the location’s many facilities, Arts District Liberty Station, the nonprofit that manages greater than 100 of Liberty Station’s cultural and hospitality amenities, was nonetheless trying to find an anchor. Enter San Diego’s Cygnet Theatre, which was searching for a brand new house. Cygnet had lengthy outgrown its technologically outdated, barnlike theater in Previous City San Diego, its lease was unsure and its operations had been scattered across the space, notes Sean Murray, the Cygnet’s co-founder and inventive director.
Fall Preview 2025
The one information you could fall leisure.
On Sept. 10, Liberty Station’s long-neglected naval base trade, in any other case often called Constructing 178, can be reborn because the Cygnet’s new house. Referred to as the Joan, quick for the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Performing Arts Heart in recognition of the mission’s lead donors, the 42,000-square-foot complicated will function the theater’s house for productions — its first can be a staging of James Goldman and Stephen Sondheim’s “Follies” — and its places of work, whereas internet hosting different efficiency firms from across the area.
Constructing 178, initially opened in 1942, had included a bowling alley, commissary, tailor store and even a disco. However after the Navy closed the San Diego coaching heart in 1997, it sat empty and deteriorating, going through threats of demolition or business redevelopment.
1. Chris Bittner, a principal at San Diego’s OBR Structure. 2. Irwin Jacobs, one among San Diego’s most distinguished arts philanthropists. 3. Sean Murray, the Cygnet’s co-founder and inventive director. (Ariana Drehsler / For The Instances)
“When the Navy left, they just walked out,” says Lisa Johnson, government director of Arts District Liberty Station. “It looked like they’d gone to lunch — half-drunk coffee cups still on the desks.” A lot of Constructing 178 barely stood. “Ceilings had collapsed. Columns were rotted through. In some cases, stucco was holding up walls that had no structural core,” says architect Chris Bittner, a principal at San Diego-based OBR Structure.
Bittner, whose grandfather educated on the base throughout World Struggle II, has labored on numerous Liberty Station tasks for greater than 20 years. He and his group rebuilt the constructing’s japanese flank, now containing rehearsal areas, re-creating the colonial-style roof, beams and partitions whereas opening up breezeways that had been bricked in.
The Joan’s two efficiency venues — a 280-plus-seat proscenium theater and a 150-seat black field — are constructed into the surviving a part of the constructing, however lots of the areas round them needed to be reconfigured.
For the primary theater, to keep away from altering the constructing’s historic roofline, crews excavated beneath the unique slab, reducing the stage and viewers ranges so catwalks, rigging and lighting grids may match below the low profile. “We basically took a two-story building and sunk it down a floor,” notes Bittner. Elevating the black-box theater ceiling and making the house column-free required huge switch beams to hold the load of the ground above.
As a result of the theater sits straight below San Diego Worldwide Airport’s flight path (simply attempt having an uninterrupted dialog within the Level Loma neighborhood), the architects wrapped every theater in layered wall assemblies, rubber gaskets and sound-lock vestibules with paired doorways to dam noise. HVAC models had been acoustically remoted with springs and pads, ductwork was lined to sluggish air velocity, and separate mechanical zones had been created so foyer or store noise couldn’t leak into performances. The primary stage additionally has a thick concrete ceiling, and its subtly faceted acoustic wall panels, embedded with micro-perforations, double as sound absorbers and diffusers, subtly tuning the house.
1. Leonard and Elaine Hirsch Neighborhood Inexperienced Room 2. The Dottie Studio Theater 3. Molli and Arthur Wagner Rehearsal Studio 4. Pam Truthful and Glen Sullivan Dressing Room 4 (Ariana Drehsler / For The Instances)
The auditorium design is trendy however understated, with its angled panels and pops of colour offering vigorous accents whereas nonetheless focusing consideration on performances. The foyer, which opens to its environment (and breezes) by way of giant sliding glass doorways, tells a unique story. With heat wooden paneling, uncovered concrete, terrazzo and low metal railings, the vigorous house feels each trendy and nostalgic, with references to its previous life as a bowling alley. There are lane arrows in a number of the floorboards whereas authentic lane numbers are painted on the basement girders of the back-of-house areas. There’s additionally a small artwork gallery slightly below, reached by way of an open stair.
The mission may by no means have come to life with out the assist of the Jacobs’, San Diego’s most distinguished arts philanthropists. (Irwin Jacobs based Qualcomm, amongst different endeavors.) Joan Jacobs died final 12 months, making the theater’s identify, which had already been deliberate, particularly poignant. Much more so as a result of Joan, raised in New York Metropolis, was a passionate theatergoer. The couple pledged $10 million when the mission was nonetheless beginning up — a transfer definitely famous by subsequent donors. “Once people saw the scope and ambition it became easier to attract other supporters,” Murray says.
“We hoped our gift would be a catalyst,” says Irwin Jacobs, whose son Gary helped discovered Liberty Station’s Excessive Tech Excessive in 2000, giving the Jacobs familiarity with the world. “We wanted to help set the stage for the next chapter,” he provides. Jacobs and his late spouse supported a dizzying checklist of cultural amenities within the metropolis (along with science and academic giving) together with, in recent times, the San Diego Symphony’s Jacobs Music Heart, the Rady Shell at Jacobs Park, and the Museum of Modern Artwork San Diego’s Joan and Irwin Jacobs Constructing.
“They have shaped the cultural landscape of San Diego,” Johnson says.
Jacobs, who acknowledged that his contributions have “made San Diego a more dynamic place to live and work,” says the Joan could also be one of many final (or the final) main cultural mission he helps. “We couldn’t think of a better note to end on,” he says. Extra funding included a $10-million grant from the state of California (one thing that appears unimaginable in right now’s political local weather), in addition to assist from San Diego County and dozens of personal donors.
The Joan and Irwin Jacobs Performing Arts Heart (“The Joan”) in Liberty Station in San Diego.
(Ariana Drehsler / For The Instances)
Whereas Cygnet will function the ability, the Joan — positioned at what Bittner calls “the front door” to Liberty Station — is designed as a shared group house. The secondary black field, named the Dottie for important donor Dorothea Laub, can be accessible for rental and out of doors performances. Public galleries and foyer areas will activate the constructing all through the day, not simply throughout reveals.
Whilst Cygnet prepares to open the Joan, fundraising continues — about 14% of the $43.5-million finances stays to be raised. To its creators, the constructing’s most lasting legacy could also be the way it attracts individuals right into a campus that additionally boasts retailers, galleries, artist studios, eating places, museums, a cinema and Liberty Public Market meals corridor.
“This project is going to activate the whole campus in a way we’ve never seen,” Johnson says. “It’s not just a theater — it’s a magnet. It will bring people here during the day, into the evenings, and make this district a true cultural destination.”
