The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park
The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park is an open-air music venue in San Diego, California. It first opened in 2021, and is operated by the San Diego Symphony on the grounds of Embarcadero Marina Park South, which the symphony leases from the Port of San Diego. The site is located on San Diego Bay in the Marina district of downtown San Diego.
Design and construction
Prior to construction of the Rady Shell, the San Diego Symphony had held summertime concerts at the same location for 15 years using temporary structures. The new permanent venue, initially called the Bayside Performance Park, broke ground on August 29, 2019, and was designed by Tucker Sadler Architects. The central Performance Shell was designed by the London company Soundforms. Rudolph and Sletten was the general contractor and Coffman Engineers provided the structural engineering.The symphony originally planned to invest $45 million in construction of the venue and associated improvements to the park, such as new lighting and public restrooms. The new facilities were planned to open in July 2020. However, the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the opening for 13 months. The symphony decided to use the extra time to add features to the project, resulting in a final budget of $85 million. More than 99% of the funds were raised from private donations.
In May 2021, the symphony announced that the venue would be named "The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park" in honor of some of its major donors: Ernest and Evelyn Rady gave $15 million for the project, and Joan and Irwin Jacobs donated $11 million. Other major donors included the Conrad Prebys Foundation and Una Davis. The facility was officially opened with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on August 5, 2021. A six-course dinner and a fireworks display accompanied the following evening's opening San Diego Symphony performance of music by Mozart, Gershwin, Saint-Saëns, and Stravinsky.