‘America’s outdoor downtown’: What a San Diego downtown arts district could look like

For a decade, officials have kicked around the idea of a downtown arts district. It’s in the Downtown Partnership’s planning documents. The city explored the idea in multiple arts and cultural studies.

But now, those two groups, alongside the Prebys Foundation, have taken a major step toward creating downtown’s first arts district, by creating a new position to lead the charge. 

In October, Jonathan Glus left his role as director of the city’s cultural affairs department for one at the Downtown Partnership as its senior art and design fellow in residence. The position is funded by the Prebys Foundation as part of its downtown revitalization efforts.

Glus plans to assemble an advisory council and next Spring unveil a collective plan for the new arts district.

“We’ve all been working towards this, but we haven’t, together, set a big vision,” he said. “So this is the opportunity to set that vision for what is the future of arts and culture in downtown San Diego.”

But San Diego has a nasty habit of releasing ambitious plans that it can’t execute.

Glus does not believe the downtown arts district will fall into that trap, partially because his position spearheading the effort was created to be nimble. Plus, the support of the Partnership, Prebys Foundation and the city signals a commitment to downtown’s urban transformation.

“All three entities know that arts and culture is going to be, or is, I should say, an important leg of all of this,” he said. “I think this is a great opportunity we have not had in recent history.”

Glus didn’t provide many details on the district, opting to stay mum while reaching out to stakeholders. He said the plan will pull from existing policy documents, like the “Creative City” cultural plan and Downtown Community Plan.

He did say he could promise short-term initiatives, like pop-up public art installations, murals and creative programming alongside enhancements to the C and B streets corridors through plaza and park activations.

“We’re America’s outdoor downtown,” Glus said. “We have the best weather in the Americas. We want to really celebrate that, and we want to develop something that is wholly, organically unique to San Diego.”

He is bullish on a matchmaker program that could pair property owners with creative industry businesses and nonprofits looking for space.

“The Creative City cultural plan identified the highest need in our region being artist workspaces, live/work spaces, and affordable, accessible, high quality spaces for small arts and cultural organizations,” Glus said.

“Everything is on the table,” said Nathan Bishop, the Downtown Partnership’s vice president of planning and economic development.

That “everything” could include property tax breaks for owners who lease to arts businesses and nonprofits, incentivizing owners to build artist live/work studios, or offering sales tax exemptions for original art sold in the district. Those have all been successful in other cities’ arts districts.

The Partnership’s role means private businesses, which it represents, will be involved.

“We think there’s an opportunity of us being able to help spearhead some of this and bring people to the table, and also for our private property owners and our private businesses to also kind of accelerate it through their own initiatives,” Bishop said.

The district’s borders haven’t been nailed down, but it will include five historic theaters that in the Core-Columbia/City Center neighborhood and edge of Gaslamp: Civic Center Theatre, Balboa Theatre, Lyceum Theatre, Jacobs Music Hall and the long-dormant Spreckels Theatre.

Gaslamp Historian Sandee Wilhoit said the Core Civic area, which was part of the original Gaslamp community, “was the center of the entertainment and arts scene” in early downtown.

Horton Hall at 6th and F, Fisher Opera House at 4th between B and C, and Leach’s Opera House at 1st and D are some of the early San Diego theaters.

When Spreckels Theatre was built in 1912, it put San Diego on the map ahead of the 1915 Panama-California Exposition as the best theater money could buy west of the Mississippi.

But in the 1960s and beyond, office towers pushed out some of those historic theaters as the area became San Diego’s economic center and seat of city government.

That all changed in 2020 when work-from-home orders emptied out the neighborhood. Even as some industries returned to the office, employee foot traffic is only back to 80% of its pre-pandemic level.

“Coming out of COVID, we have an opportunity to rethink the experience of downtown through the lens of arts and culture,” Glus said.

Bishop said establishing an arts focus for an area known for offices and government buildings is a way to “future proof” it, creating a balanced economy and authentic neighborhood people want to spend time in.

Creative industries are increasingly seen as a resilient and necessary part of the local economy, with a $10.8 billion economic impact in 2022 that supports 170,000 jobs.

Glus thinks those creative industries can build efficiencies if they were located near each other in a vibrant area which encouraged creative thinking.

With the five theaters, performing arts already fuel the area. Glus hopes for a grand arts district that includes visual arts as well. That could include galleries taking advantage of retail space in the area, and the murals, art installations and interactive art exhibits they’re already envisioning. 

At nearby Santa Fe Depot, UCSD purchased the former downtown outpost of Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego last year, with $15 million plans to turn it into a cultural hub with space for exhibits, galleries, studios and offices serving small arts organizations. 

But the district will also rely heavily on the successful resolution of two major, but troubled, redevelopment projects underway in the area: Horton Plaza, home of the renovated Lyceum Theatre, and the Civic Center, home of the largest indoor theater in the region.