Victoria Hall Theatre—Almost ready for prime time

The Victoria Hall Theatre was built in 1921 as a lively church in the center of Santa Barbara, California, but matured into a tired theatre in the center of the downtown Arts District. Initial considerations whether to renovate began with a study about minimizing intrusion of loud dance music from a neighboring open-deck club. Thereafter, the renovation took off, with major changes including an entirely new stage house, and replacing a problematic balcony with a continuous floor plan with great sightlines for its 294 seats. Exterior noise isolation is excellent considering its wood construction, and interior finishes promote great clarity and improved intimacy. However, the decision to reuse the six old air handling units in the attic, compounded by some questionable mechanical engineering omissions, undermined the theatre’s potential to make sound system reinforcement essentially unnecessary. This paper will review various renovation decisions, and the several steps to quiet the renovated HVAC to its current moderate levels, plus the follow-up that almost provided authorization to further quiet the system.