Newport may sell long-closed Balboa theater

Newport Beach’s storied history with the 87-year-old Balboa Performing Arts Theater could soon come to a conclusion.

The City Council indicated during a study session Tuesday afternoon that it plans to sell the theater, in Balboa Village at 707 E. Balboa Blvd.

“The community is very supportive of cultural arts, but it’s hard to imagine it being successful in such a small, limited venue,” said Mayor Pro Tem Diane Dixon.

The city bought the property in 1988 for $480,000. The theater fell on hard times in the early 1990s and eventually was shuttered in 1992.

Since its opening in 1928, the venue’s offerings progressed from vaudeville shows and small theater productions to Hollywood movie screenings and popular revival and art films.

In the decades after its closure, some residents hoped the theater would again entertain the masses.

The Balboa Performing Arts Theater Foundation launched a fundraising effort to renovate the building, ultimately planning to transform it into a 320-seat multi-use venue featuring musical acts, dance and theater performances, films and performing-arts education. In response, the city has leased the building to the foundation for $1 per year for the past 16 years.

But fundraising did not prove fruitful.

Last year, the city proposed turning the theater into a city-run fine-arts center offering exhibitions, movies, live performances and workshops in arts, crafts and music.

However, council members and others in the community continued to harbor concerns.

Transforming the aging venue, with its worn floor, deteriorated ceiling and leaky roof, would cost about $5.8 million, according to city estimates.

Widespread community support was difficult to find, Dixon said.

At a recent town hall meeting on the Balboa Peninsula, city staff asked members of the audience to raise their hands if they wanted the city to sell the theater. Nearly everyone did.

“I wish it was sold,” resident W.R. Dildine said during Tuesday’s study session. “It’s a blight in the eyes of some.”

Steve Beazley, former chief executive of the foundation, said he doubts anyone from the organization would oppose the sale.

“I have seen no better exercising of patience than the city has had for the foundation to open the theater,” he said. “I believe that patience, and support, has earned Mayor [Ed] Selich and the City Council the right to make any decision on the property’s future and receive full community support.”

The council will decide the fate of the theater at an upcoming meeting.