Completed in 1912<\/a>, the Spreckels Building was commissioned by sugar magnate John D. Spreckels to commemorate the opening of the Panama Canal and the Pan American Exposition of 1915. The property was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975, and represents one of the first attempts of \u201cbringing the best that money could buy\u201d to San Diego, according to federal registry documents. The building was designed by Los Angeles architect Harrison Albright, and is celebrated for its Chicago-style facade, Baroque interior and live performance acoustics.<\/p>\nThe six-story building includes 40,739 square feet of partially occupied street-level shops, 127,490 square feet of vacant office space on floors two through six, 134 parking spaces in an underground garage and the 1,463-seat Spreckels Theatre. The property sits on an acre of land and takes up a full city block. The performance venue, which was at one time set to be run by ASM Global, has remained closed since it shut down in 2020 because of the pandemic.<\/p>\n
The building\u2019s remaining retail tenants and 134 parking spaces bring in around $750,000 of income each year, according to a Cushman & Wakefield sales brochure prepared for the initial listing.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/sut-spreckels-auction-006.jpg\")
The Spreckels Building and Theatre on Broadway in downtown San Diego on Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026. (Nelvin C. Cepeda \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n
The lender-driven nature of the online auction means the Spreckels Building has likely reached a climatic turn in the sales process.<\/p>\n
\u201cLender-driven typically means that the property hasn\u2019t been officially foreclosed on, but the lender is in control of the decision-making process,\u201d said Richard Gonor, an executive with Jones Lange LaSalle. \u201cThis generally happens after a loan comes due and the property isn\u2019t able to be refinanced or sold.\u201d<\/p>\n
The auction site touts the building\u2019s location at Broadway and First Avenue as being at the intersection of \u201cmain-and-main,\u201d lists property tax benefits available to buyers, and notes that the five office floors can be converted to residential, educational or hotel use.<\/p>\n
A buyer will, however, need to preserve the building\u2019s historic elements.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe building contains architecturally significant Baroque style interiors, such as the theater and lobby spaces, that would need to be preserved,\u201d said Kelley Stanco, a deputy director in the city\u2019s Planning Department. \u201cThe upstairs office spaces and hallways are not significant and could feasibly be converted to hotel or residential use. Exterior architectural elements, such as the building\u2019s characteristic large wood windows, would need to be preserved, repaired or replaced in-kind.\u201d<\/p>\n
The property\u2019s proximity to the Campus at Horton may also factor into bids. The redeveloped property, which takes up seven blocks and remains fenced off, was foreclosed on by the developer\u2019s lender last year.<\/p>\n
However, Horton\u2019s downfall, amid the collapse of the downtown office market, appears distinct from the Spreckels Building situation.<\/p>\n
The iconic theater building has floundered primarily because its most celebrated feature demands a highly specialized owner, Gonor said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe main component of this project is the theater. So you have to have a solid business plan for the theater to be successful in order for the investment to work,\u201d Gonor said. \u201cTo find an office investor, or if converted a hotel or multi-family housing investor, that also wants to specialize in theaters and event space \u2014 there\u2019s not very many people that are interested in doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The site, he said, has garnered a lot of interest from residential and hotel investors over the past several months, but is more suitable for an entertainment group versed in the concert business.<\/p>\n
At least one brand-name entertainment group took a look at the Spreckels property.<\/p>\n
Between June and December, Brian Platt, a partner with UMH Development, had multiple discussions with staff in the city\u2019s Development Services and Planning departments about the property, said Brian Schoenfisch, who heads the city\u2019s Urban Division. UMH Development is the North American development partner for UMusic Hotels.<\/p>\n
The discussions were related to historic preservation regulations, downtown development incentive programs and the building conversion process, he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The storied Spreckels Building and Theatre at 121 Broadway, once a symbol of opulence and San Diego\u2019s emerging…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165971,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[387,8303,181,100,388,74,76,75,1696],"class_list":{"0":"post-165970","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-growth-development","10":"tag-latest-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-real-estate","13":"tag-san-diego","14":"tag-san-diego-headlines","15":"tag-san-diego-news","16":"tag-top-stories-sdut"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}