Balboa Theatre

San Diego’s historic Balboa Theatre, built in 1924, originally served as a vaudeville theater and movie palace. The theater went through many incarnations. It was closed for over 20 years before the city’s Redevelopment Agency committed to fund its rehabilitation, and to open it as a community arts center.

Our involvement in the Balboa Theatre restoration project involved stabilization, repair and recreation of lost ornamental and decorative plaster elements. Our plaster studio was engaged in plaster fabrication, including sculpting, mold making and casting new ornamental and decorative plaster elements, to replace deterioration, and fill in loss. We applied specialty finishes and metallic highlights to textured surfaces throughout the theater, reinstating their original color schemes. All pilasters were re-sculpted, restoring some of the theater’s original features, and previously overpainted lobby murals were recreated to their original design.