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Liberty Station, the decades-long transformation of San Diego\u2019s massive Naval Training Center into a mixed-use neighborhood and cultural district, is a welcome reprieve from much of Southern California\u2019s fragmented sprawl. Thanks to its 1920s-era Spanish Revival buildings, arched colonnades and broad public promenades, visiting it feels like stepping back to a time when walkability and simple elegance were the norm. To get a picture in your head, rewatch the original \u201cTop Gun\u201d for NTC\u2019s cameo when Tom Cruise\u2019s Maverick rides toward the house of Kelly McGillis\u2019 Charlie along the complex\u2019s Roosevelt Road with the arcaded buildings perfectly framing the shot.<\/p>\n
Despite its legacy and the site\u2019s many amenities, Arts District Liberty Station, the nonprofit that manages more than 100 of Liberty Station\u2019s cultural and hospitality facilities, was still searching for an anchor. Enter San Diego\u2019s Cygnet Theatre, which was seeking a new home. Cygnet had long outgrown its technologically outdated, barnlike theater in Old Town San Diego, its lease was uncertain and its operations were scattered around the area, notes Sean Murray, the Cygnet\u2019s co-founder and artistic director.<\/p>\n
Fall Preview 2025<\/p>\n The only guide you need to fall entertainment.<\/p>\n On Sept. 10, Liberty Station\u2019s long-neglected naval base exchange, otherwise known as Building 178<\/a>, will be reborn as the Cygnet\u2019s new home. Called the Joan, short for the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Performing Arts Center in recognition of the project\u2019s lead donors, the 42,000-square-foot complex will serve as the theater\u2019s home for productions \u2014 its first will be a staging of James Goldman and Stephen Sondheim\u2019s \u201cFollies\u201d \u2014 and its offices, while hosting other performance companies from around the region.<\/p>\n Building 178, originally opened in 1942, had included a bowling alley, commissary, tailor shop and even a disco. But after the Navy closed the San Diego training center<\/a> in 1997, it sat empty and deteriorating, facing threats of demolition or commercial redevelopment.<\/p>\n 1 <\/p>\n 2 <\/p>\n 3 <\/p>\n 1.<\/strong> Chris Bittner, a principal at San Diego\u2019s OBR Architecture. 2.<\/strong> Irwin Jacobs, one of San Diego\u2019s most prominent arts philanthropists. 3.<\/strong> Sean Murray, the Cygnet\u2019s co-founder and artistic director. (Ariana Drehsler \/ For The Times) <\/p>\n \u201cWhen the Navy left, they just walked out,\u201d says Lisa Johnson, executive director of Arts District Liberty Station. \u201cIt looked like they\u2019d gone to lunch \u2014 half-drunk coffee cups still on the desks.\u201d Much of Building 178 barely stood. \u201cCeilings had collapsed. Columns were rotted through. In some cases, stucco was holding up walls that had no structural core,\u201d says architect Chris Bittner, a principal at San Diego-based OBR Architecture.<\/p>\n Bittner, whose grandfather trained at the base during World War II, has worked on various Liberty Station projects for more than two decades. He and his team rebuilt the building\u2019s eastern flank, now containing rehearsal spaces, re-creating the colonial-style roof, beams and walls while opening up breezeways that had been bricked in.<\/p>\n The Joan\u2019s two performance venues \u2014 a 280-plus-seat proscenium theater and a 150-seat black box \u2014 are built into the surviving part of the building, but many of the spaces around them had to be reconfigured.<\/p>\n For the main theater, to avoid changing the building\u2019s historic roofline, crews excavated below the original slab, lowering the stage and audience levels so catwalks, rigging and lighting grids could fit under the low profile. \u201cWe basically took a two-story building and sunk it down a floor,\u201d notes Bittner. Raising the black-box theater ceiling and making the space column-free required massive transfer beams to carry the load of the floor above.<\/p>\n Because the theater sits directly under San Diego International Airport\u2019s flight path (just try having an uninterrupted conversation in the Point Loma neighborhood), the architects wrapped each theater in layered wall assemblies, rubber gaskets and sound-lock vestibules with paired doors to block noise. HVAC units were acoustically isolated with springs and pads, ductwork was lined to slow air velocity, and separate mechanical zones were created so lobby or shop noise couldn\u2019t leak into performances. The main stage also 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 space.<\/p>\n 1 <\/p>\n 2 <\/p>\n 3 <\/p>\n 4 <\/p>\n 1.<\/strong> Leonard and Elaine Hirsch Community Green Room 2.<\/strong> The Dottie Studio Theater 3.<\/strong> Molli and Arthur Wagner Rehearsal Studio 4.<\/strong> Pam Fair and Glen Sullivan Dressing Room 4 (Ariana Drehsler \/ For The Times) <\/p>\n The auditorium design is modern but understated, with its angled panels and pops of color providing lively accents while still focusing attention on performances. The lobby, which opens to its surroundings (and breezes) via large sliding glass doors, tells a different story. With warm wood paneling, exposed concrete, terrazzo and low steel railings, the lively space feels both modern and nostalgic, with references to its past life as a bowling alley. There are lane arrows in some of the floorboards while original lane numbers are painted on the basement girders of the back-of-house spaces. There\u2019s also a small art gallery just below, reached via an open stair.<\/p>\n The project might never have come to life without the support of the Jacobs\u2019, San Diego\u2019s most prominent arts philanthropists. (Irwin Jacobs founded Qualcomm, among other endeavors.) Joan Jacobs died<\/a> last year, making the theater\u2019s name, which had already been planned, especially poignant. Even more so because Joan, raised in New York City, was a passionate theatergoer. The couple pledged $10 million when the project was still starting up \u2014 a move certainly noted by subsequent donors. \u201cOnce people saw the scope and ambition it became easier to attract other supporters,\u201d Murray says.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n
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