2 BALBOA PARK NONPROFITS TO MERGE INTO ONE CITY PARTNER
Two Balboa Park groups will combine forces to become a singular, hopefully stronger, city ally for the betterment of San Diego’s historic landmark.
Thursday, the Balboa Park Conservancy and the Friends of Balboa Park nonprofits said that their respective boards voted this week to approve a merger that will go into effect on July 1.
The groups are currently in search of an executive to run the combined entity, which will act as a partner to the city of San Diego on big projects like the in-progress restoration of the iconic Botanical Building. The merged board is expected to be co-chaired by Balboa Park Conservancy Board Chair Connie Matsui and Friends of Balboa Park Board Chair Sarah Evans.
“We really see this as an opportunity to unite, to enhance and to be stronger,” Evans said, referencing the organizations’ joint ability to respond to financial setbacks triggered by government-ordered shutdowns. “But for COVID, I don’t know that this would have happened. But I’m really glad it did, because we’ve all been able to look and see the potential that there is in
working together as one organization to make the park better.”
Formed in 2011 as the notfor-profit partner to San Diego, the Balboa Park Conservancy’s mandate is to care for the park while also raising donor funds to improve public assets, including buildings not leased by cultural institutions. The conservancy’s day-to-day duties include operating the House of Hospitality, which is home to the Prado restaurant, and the Balboa Park Visitors Center. The nonprofit also hosts the annual December Nights festival. Last year, its ability to sustain operations was tested by a lack of park visitors. Its CEO resigned in May.
In the fiscal year ending June 30, the conservancy lost $244,291 on $3 million in revenue, according to the organization’s Form 990 filed with the Internal Revenue Service. In the year prior, it made $1 million in profit on $4.3 million in revenue.
“(The ultimate goal) is to be able to align our priorities with the city, and to be able to identify and execute on projects that really play to our strengths, looking particularly at the public spaces, the gardens, as well as opportunities for historical renovation,” Matsui, the conservancy’s board chair, said.
The conservancy was formed on the premise that philanthropists would prefer to give to a private entity over the city out of fear that donations to the latter might not go to specific projects, said Michael Stepner, who previously worked in the city’s planning department, served on the city’s Park & Recreation board and now teaches urban design at the NewSchool of Architecture & Design.
But the model that was contemplated for the conservancy — New York’s Central Park Conservancy— was never quite achieved, he said. And the pandemic didn’t help matters.
“The merger is a good idea because the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” Stepner said. “Those two groups are responsible, theoretically, for looking at the entire park. And if they can merge and create a stronger entity, and then that entity can perhaps look at the original proposal about how the conservancy and the city should partner, maybe that gives us a much stronger force to get a lot of things done in the park.”
Founded by Betty Peabody in 1999 as the Balboa Park Millennium Society, Friends of Balboa Park is a different kind of group than the conservancy with no direct affiliation with the city. It does, however, have a similar outlook on parkwide care. It has used donor funds to tackle hundreds of park improvement projects large and small, including upgrades to the Palm Canyon pedestrian bridge and construction of the Morton Bay Fig Tree Platform. It also owns and operates the currently shuttered Balboa Park Carousel, raising $3 million for the historic ride’s acquisition and repairs. It is a relatively small operation with just six active employees on the payroll.
It was Peabody, a longtime park advocate, who kickstarted merger talks last year, Matsui said. In August, the nonprofits entered into a memorandum of understanding. Since then, the organizations have completed due diligence and design phases, and are ready to commence with integration, Matsui said.
The combined organization will press forward with their respective duties, but also zero in on the yearsoverdue restoration of the Botanical Building. Originally constructed in 1914, the facility is just one of four remaining permanent structures built for the Panama California Exposition. It is in need of major repair, and the conservancy has been charged with leading the renovation effort since 2015. In 2019, the state of California stepped in with an $8.26 million grant, although funds will only cover structural and infrastructure upgrades in a phase-one project that is now being managed by the city.
The merged institutions will then be on the hook for making up the difference in the project cost, which has likely ballooned well above the previous estimate of $11 million. The conservancy has crafted a plan to sell naming rights for various building elements.