Spreckels Theatre, Downtown

In 2008, longtime San Diego Union-Tribune theater critic Welton Jones described the Spreckels Theatre as “San Diego’s premiere show business treasure” and one of the most beautiful and historic theaters in the country.

Opened in 1912, the Spreckels Theatre was commissioned by San Diego philanthropist John D. Spreckels and designed by San Diego Master Architect Harrison Albright as part of the city’s preparations for the 1915 Panama-California Exposition. It was the first truly modern Broadway-style theater built west of the Mississippi and it remains an extraordinarily rare survivor of the grand pre-movie-palace era.

Inside a six-story office building with large Chicago-style windows, the ornate, 1,463-seat theater is distinguished by an enormous stage, unobstructed sightlines, and Baroque architectural details that have survived for more than a century. Unlike many theaters of its era, the Spreckels was never substantially remodeled to compete with the elaborate movie palaces that followed in the 1920s and 1930s.

Its stage has hosted grand opera, symphony orchestras, ballet, plays and musicals, popular concerts, and films. Abbott and Costello, John Barrymore, Enrico Caruso, Katharine Hepburn, Al Jolson, Will Rogers, and generations of touring performers appeared here. When fire destroyed the Old Globe Theatre in Balboa Park in 1978, the Spreckels opened its doors to host the Globe’s 1978–79 season.

The Spreckels Theatre's survival owes much to the extraordinary determination of Jacquelyn Littlefield, who owned and operated the Spreckels for more than five decades. She resisted repeated pressure to sell and defended the theater as a place for live performance until her death in 2019.

Then the curtain fell. The theater closed following its final performances in February 2020. In April 2021, the 217,000-square-foot Spreckels Building was sold for $26.5 million to a joint venture of Taconic Capital Advisors and Triangle Capital Group. The new owners announced plans to restore the property and hired ASM Global and Ware Malcomb to work on the theater and building.

More than five years after the theater's last performance, however, the Spreckels remains dark. The building is still being maintained, and a ground-floor coffee shop remains open, important signs that the landmark has not simply been abandoned. But the theater has not reopened, its marquee remains silent, and the public has received little information about its long-term future.

That silence is increasingly concerning. The Spreckels is a designated City of San Diego Historic Landmark and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1975. It is not simply an old theater that happens to occupy valuable downtown real estate. It is one of the city's great cultural landmarks and one of the rare surviving large theaters from the years before the movie-palace era.

San Diego has already lost too many historic theaters. It increasingly appears to be a city that shows by its actions and funding cuts that it does not respect its arts and cultural heritage. We cannot allow the Spreckels to become another casualty of downtown redevelopment.

The Spreckels is particularly important because of what this “show business treasure” has not lost. Most large theaters of the early twentieth century were extensively altered, modernized, subdivided, or demolished as entertainment technology and audience expectations changed. The Spreckels retains the theater’s 1912 character, a remarkable feat of survival that allows today's visitors to experience a type of grand theater that has disappeared from many American cities.

Albright designed it as a sophisticated European-style opera and theater house, with graceful proportions, no supporting columns to interfere with sightlines, and carefully considered appointments. This integrity makes the Spreckels irreplaceable.

The building's owners have said they intend to preserve its historic character. Now San Diegans wants to know what that future looks like.

What You Can Do

The Spreckels has survived more than a century of changing tastes, economic downturns, redevelopment schemes, competition from movies and television, and the transformation of downtown San Diego. It survived because generations of San Diegans recognized its worth. Now it needs that commitment again. It is a renowned theater waiting for its next act.

Courtesy rimarketplace.com

Courtesy historictheatrephotos.com

Courtesy rimarketplace.com