VISTA — As local programming grows at the AVO Playhouse on Main Street, city leaders are exploring ways to fund $1.8 million in needed upgrades to the historic downtown venue to ensure its long-term success.
Opened in 1948 as a movie theater and acquired by the city in 1995, the AVO has served for many years as a space for local youth theater performances. Since 2024, the city and the Central Vista Business Improvement District (CVBID) have made various efforts to increase programming at the venue and make it more accessible to the community.
Last year, a temporary stakeholder committee gave a long list of recommendations for how to make the AVO into a modern, attractive, and multi-use event destination. They recommended that the city perform deferred maintenance and upgrades to the building and hire staff to promote, book, and manage the playhouse.
In late 2025, the city released a request for proposals seeking an operator for the AVO Playhouse who would also complete the needed upgrades, then estimated at $1.3 million. The city extended the RFP three times, but as of February, it had not received any sufficient responses.
“Staff received feedback indicating the limited response to the RFP was primarily attributable to the projected maintenance costs, which prospective operators determined would render operation of the facility financially infeasible,” said Assistant City Manager Imelda Huerta.
City staff regrouped and, on May 26, shared a new laundry list of needed maintenance for the playhouse totaling $1.8 million. It identified new lighting and seating, a new signage tower, sound and video upgrades, and more.
No funding has been identified yet for any of the upgrades. However, City Council members said last week they would be interested in prioritizing a new projector and screen to host more events, possibly using funds left over at the year’s end.
“This is a lot of money. I think the AVO’s worth it, personally,” said Councilmember Corinna Contreras. “I think we will see a return on investment in the AVO, but again, going in line with what the council has been doing, I do think some of these can be prioritized over others and we can have a phased approach.”
Video and sound upgrades are expected to cost $60,000 each, and upgrading to dimmable LED lighting would cost $120,000. Replacement of the sign tower would cost $550,000, new ceiling tiles over the seating area would cost $350,000, and replacing the marquee with a digital display would cost around $220,000.
Recreation and Community Services Director Margaret Haimer recommended that the council prioritize safety-related repairs, such as new ceiling tiles and chairs, noting that some groups have complained about falling ceiling tiles and broken chair handles.
“I think the safety areas, you’d want to have as priority, because especially if you want to have more and more people there and more activities, we want to make sure we’re providing a safe environment for those who are enjoying it,” Haimer said.
Mayor John Franklin said that while he would love to pursue the upgrades, he did not want to commit any money until the council had considered all other possible uses for the city’s surplus year-end funds.
“Before we spend all this money that we haven’t figured out where it’s coming from yet, I’m okay with putting together a plan, but I don’t want to get too excited about spending it,” Franklin said.
In the meantime, efforts are already well underway to bring more energy to the AVO.
Over the past year, the playhouse has hosted a series of events known as AVO Unplugged, including live music and podcast performances, a Shredtalk event hosted by the Vista Skateboarding Society, the SoCal Kpop Anime Fest, and Rocky Horror Picture Show.
AVO Unplugged is part of a larger initiative known as VistaMade, led by Vista-based Humble Pie Communications. As part of an agreement with the city, Humble Pie committed to bringing more live events to the AVO to activate the larger CVBID.
“What we’ve really tried to do during that whole effort as part of the downtown special events program is really just to kind of try out a lot of different things, and I think we’ve had some really good successes in all of that,” said CVBID Program Manager Bill Hornung.
While the playhouse has been a great space for many events, Hornung said he would like to see the city prioritize a new projector and screen to give the venue even more draw.
“That’s really prevented us from doing a lot of other things we’d like to do in there,” Hornung said.
To allow a wider range of events at the AVO, the city also agreed last year to make the theater available for five-hour rentals rather than just 10-hour blocks. The city also established lower rental fees for nonprofit organizations and for those based in Vista.
Still, Contreras and Councilmember Katie Melendez said they would like to discuss the possibility of having an even shorter rental period option.
“For years, I’ve been saying, ‘We don’t have a problem with the AVO, except for that there’s no programming. We just need to open it up for programming.’ So I was right. As soon as we opened it up, all of this cool s— started happening, and now we’re getting more people into our downtown, we’re getting collaboration with our businesses,” Melendez said.
Deputy Mayor Dan O’Donnell said that while he supported investing in the AVO, he wanted the council to return to a more focused discussion of the overall vision for the space and how it can generate long-term revenue for the city.
He said he envisions something similar to the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach, which can draw bigger headliner acts.
“I think that if we’re going to make a $2 million investment, which I think is necessary and I support doing, we just need to have an idea of what the endgame is,” O’Donnell said. “There’s so much stuff on top of all the programming that we’ve done, you know, and I just think there’s a lot of potential and opportunity in this space.”
