Rehabilitation of downtown San Bernardino theater is underway

A long-planned restoration of the California Theatre of the Performing Arts in San Bernardino has begun.

The 1,700-seat downtown landmark shut down this month, and is now undergoing a $6.8 million upgrade, according to city officials.

Improvements will include upgrades to the sound system and better lighting. The heating and air conditioning will be replaced, carpeting will be installed, the building’s interior and exterior will be repainted.

The 97-year-old building will also be made fully compliant with the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Tilden-Coil Constructors Inc., in Riverside is in charge of the project, which is being paid for with revenue from Measure S, a one-percent sales tax approved by city voters in 2020. The city’s cultural development funds, and a $2.5 million donation from the California Arts Council, will also contribute.

Because labor and construction costs have gone up recently, it will cost about $1.7 million more than originally expected to pay for the upgrades, according to a city staff report.

Built in 1928, the California Theatre is on the National Register of Historic Places, a list of buildings, sites, structures and other public entities declared worthy of preservation by the National Park Service in Washington, D.C.

The theater was added to that list in 2009, which made it exempt from the strict regulations of the California Environmental Quality Act, according to the report.

Earlier this year, the California Theatre was named the best performing arts venue in Riverside and San Bernardino counties by Inland Empire Magazine. It is expected to reopen in early October.

“The California Theatre is well-known as a major landmark for visitors coming to downtown San Bernardino,” said Azzam Jabsheh, the city’s deputy director of public works, in a statement. “The upgrades being planned are a great investment for the city.”

What might be the building’s most significant upgrade has already been completed.

Restoration of the theater’s Wurlitzer Style 216 pipe organ was finished earlier this year. Installed when the theater opened in 1928, it is one of only a few functioning Wurlitzer organs anywhere in the world.

Using vintage parts, the Herman Organ Company in Baldwin Park brought the vintage musical instrument back to what it looked like when it was built, according to the statement.

Restoring the Wurlitzer Style 216 was the first phase of the restoration. Once that was done, bringing the facility back to life became the responsibility of Tilden-Coil, an 87-year-old firm that has restored historic buildings, but nothing quite like the work it plans to do with the California Theatre,

“This is a special project, because of the history of the building and because it’s been around for so long,” said Erin Figueroa, Tilden-Coil’s marketing coordinator. “It’s obviously very important to the city.”

The restoration of an auditorium at San Bernardino High School, which Tilden-Coil completed in August after about 18 months, is similar to what it will do on the California Theatre.

“They’re both historic buildings, and they both had historic artifacts that had to be protected while the work was being done,” Figueroa said. “With the auditorium it was a mural that showed the history of San Bernardino, which we covered up so it would not be damaged.”

Tilden-Coil will be responsible for enlarging the lobby – another major part of the restoration – which will give patrons a more comfortable place to gather before and after an event.

It will also redo the outside of the theater to make it look more modern. Work will take place daily, Figueroa said.

“We have a great group of subcontractors,” Figueroa said. “We aren’t concerned about meeting the deadline, or getting the work done.”

Restoring a theater is a smart financial move, especially in a city that is trying to revive its downtown, as San Bernardino is doing.

Besides pumping an estimated $2 to $3 of every ticket sold back into the local economy, a restored theater can attract business development, create jobs and improve the quality of life in its neighborhood, according to the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington, D.C.

Restoring an old theater is not cheap, nor is it easy: projects can cost up to $30 million, take five to 10 years to complete, and they require the hiring of multiple consultants, according to the trust, which works to preserve U.S. historic landmarks.

The California Theatre “is part of the DNA of downtown San Bernardino,” and returning it to something that resembles its best days is an important part of getting people to visit and shop downtown, Councilman Theodore Sanchez said.

“The California Theatre is a major part of what we’re trying to do downtown, which is get people to gather and shop in that part of the city,” said Sanchez, who represents San Bernardino’s First Ward, where the California Theater is located.

The First Ward is also the former home of the Carousel Mall, the downtown shopping mall that was torn down in 2024 after years of poor performance and a slow decline. The city plans to develop a residential-retail-office project on the 43-acre site next to Interstate 215, but attempts to hire a developer have been hurt by legal issues and is now in limbo.

That project is key to San Bernardino’s economic future, Sanchez and other council members have said repeatedly.

“The city is playing catch-up,” Sanchez said. “There are projects that we’re dealing with now that should have been dealt with years ago, and the theater restoration is one of them. It feels like we’re running a marathon, trying to get where we should be.”

A restored California Theatre, and whatever replaces the Carousel Mall – the two sites are about one-half mile apart – can help each other grow, Sanchez believes.

“They’re both part of the downtown ecosystem, and they will definitely complement each other,” Sanchez said, “The theater will be better because of whatever replaces the mall, and the former mall site will be better because of the theater.”