Spreckels Theatre in downtown San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter opened on Broadway on August 23, 1912, designed by architect Harrison Albright for sugar magnate John D. Spreckels as the first modern commercial playhouse west of the Mississippi. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1975, the 1,463-seat auditorium shares the Broadway corridor with Balboa Theatre, both anchoring a proposed downtown performing-arts district. The reinforced-concrete structure features Gladding, McBean architectural terra cotta on its exterior, a Predora onyx grand lobby, an Apollo mural above the proscenium arch, and an 82-by-58-foot stage with dual truck-loading docks on separate streets. The theater hosted performers from Enrico Caruso and Anna Pavlova to the San Diego Opera and the Royal Shakespeare Company, and sheltered The Old Globe's full 1978–79 season after arson destroyed that company's Balboa Park home. Dark since its last performance in February 2020 and sold to a private-equity joint venture in 2021 for $26.5 million, the Spreckels awaits renovation while peer venues like Jacobs Music Center have completed multimillion-dollar restorations and returned to active programming. A lender-driven auction in early 2026 — with an opening bid of $5 million — could reset ownership and potentially restore a stage whose dual-loading-dock design once accommodated a live chariot race for a production of Ben Hur.