Historic Balboa Theater sells to local private investors who restore landmark buildings
- Share via
After 35 years of closed doors, the historic Balboa Performing Arts Theater takes on new ownership, entering a new phase of life expected to be filled with reconstruction and rehabilitation for the Newport Beach landmark.
“It is great to finally see the Balboa Theater enter a new chapter,” stated Nathan Holthouser, president of Coastal Commercial, in a news release issued by the real estate company. “Historic theaters can be challenging properties to own and restore, and the people who take on these projects often do so because they have a genuine passion for making a meaningful contribution to their communities.”
First opened in 1928 as the Ritz Theater, the building at 707 E. Balboa Blvd. has undergone many changes over its decades of operation.
Between the late 1920s, when it opened, until the 1970s, the theater operated as a local neighborhood movie house. Then, in the ’70s, it was bought out and operated as a Pussycat Theater, becoming an adult movie house.
The adult movies led the theater to be seen as controversial, and became the subject of multiple police raids and legal battles in 1975. In subsequent years, the theater would be plagued as it became known for showing alternative cinema or “cult classics” before it officially screened its last movie and closed its doors in 1991.
In 2003, the Daily Pilot reported the future of the shuttered Balboa Theater took a step forward when boosters unveiled some new strategies for turning the vacant theater space, which the city had purchased in 1988 for $480,000, into a destination performing arts venue offering dance, music and film screenings.
The board of the fledgling Balboa Performing Arts Theater Foundation unveiled a $2 million by 2005 fundraising goal. The Foundation’s hope was to renovate the building into a “world-class, 320-seat venue for live theater,” The Pilot reported, noting the total estimated cost of the renovation was $6.5 million that would be paid for with future and past fundraising efforts,” including a $1-million gift already secured from philanthropists Donna and John Crean.
But those goals did not come to fruition. In 2015, the newspaper reported that the city of Newport Beach, which had leased the property for $1 per year to the foundation for 16 years, was leaning toward selling the building after considering city staff estimates that it would cost $5.8 million just to get it into good shape for future community use. The theater foundation did not object.
In April in 2016, the Newport Beach City Council voted unanimously to enter into a nine-month long exclusive negotiating agreement to work with Lab Holding LLC on a proposal to rejuvenate the theater, The Pilot reported, and sold the building that year to LAB Holding for $1 million.
The latest purchase
Now, the nearly century-old Balboa Theater has been sold. Although the real estate agencies who announced the sale declined to name the buyer or the seller, the buyers are a local couple, Matthew and Danielle Peters, who purchased the property for just under $2 million from Balboa Theater Co. LLC, registered to LAB Holding’s Linda Sadeghi, according to an Oct. 30 report in L.A. Business First.
The seller was represented by Coastal Commercial, a local agency. The buyers were represented by Christian Emerson and the Oppenheim Group, a luxury real estate brokerage company.
Detailed plans for the future of the theater remain uncertain, pending conversations and meetings with the city, according to Emerson; however, the buyers are assuring the public that they will keep the history of the Balboa Theater alive and well.
“The buyer has a long history of restoring historic landmarks across California, and this family is the right one to take on the Balboa,” Emerson said via email. “Our goal is to bring it back to its former glory as a theater with an elevated restoration.”
While plans have yet to be disclosed, a deed restriction was set in place upon the landmark’s sale, ensuring that the new owners preserve the property’s longstanding connection to entertainment, culture, and the performing arts. Under the restriction, the property must continue to be used for theatrical, cultural, event-related, or performing arts purposes.
“Everyone involved is excited to see what comes next for this historic theater in the heart of Balboa Village,” Holthouser said. “I wish the new buyer tremendous success in this endeavor, and I will personally be cheering them on from the sidelines.”
— Carroll is a contributor to the Daily Pilot
