Live Nation to Convert San Diego's Historic Wonder Bread Building into Music Venue

Image: Live Nation

Live Nation is adaptively reusing the historic Wonder Bread Building near Petco Park in San Diego's East Village, converting it into a 4,000-capacity music venue while preserving the building's facade and its iconic silo -- giving a new venue instant character rather than starting from a blank site. The project is a partnership with the Sinclair family, who own the building, alongside architecture firm Gensler and Live Nation's in-house Blueprint Studio design team.

The location matters as much as the building. Petco Park has anchored a broader transformation of San Diego's East Village over the past two decades, turning a formerly industrial and semi-derelict area into one of the city's most active entertainment and residential districts. A music venue of this size slots directly into that trajectory, adding a live-entertainment anchor to a neighborhood already built around game days and event-driven foot traffic.

Oxford Economics, commissioned to model the project's impact, projects roughly $97 million in annual economic impact and 316,000 annual visitors once the venue opens in 2028.

This is a good example of adaptive reuse being treated as a selling point rather than a compromise: rather than demolishing a distinctive old industrial building, Live Nation and its partners are using its history as part of the pitch.