Crisis for Irvine Arts Facility : City Must Find Another $1.8 Million or Scuttle Dream of Performance Center, Planners Say

It’s do or die for the Irvine Theatre.

Faced with a low bid of $17.6 million--considerably more than the $12.2 million budgeted to build the long-planned arts facility--the city of Irvine must ante up an additional $1.8 million or it will not be built, a top theater official said.

The city’s two partners in the 750-seat theater--UC Irvine and the theater’s operating company--have already pledged an additional $1.8 million each to help cover the $5.4-million difference.

Richard G. Sim, chairman of the theater’s board of directors, said Tuesday that the Irvine City Council will be asked for a decision at its Tuesday meeting.

The city has raised $9.5 million to date for the theater, which will be built on a 2.3-acre campus site donated by UCI and valued at $2.3 million. The operating company, which had a $2.7-million fund-raising goal (since increased to $4.5 million because of the bids), has raised $1.6 million in 6 months.

“If the city approves its additional share, we’re in a position to start construction in late January or early February at the latest,” said Sim, who is also group president of Investment Properties for the Irvine Co. “It’s important that we move ahead now because we have a lot of momentum.”

The theater is expected to be completed in the fall of 1990.

“If this project doesn’t get approved at this stage,” Sim said, “it goes away forever, and we won’t see a theater built in this city in our lifetime.”

The apparent low bid to build the Irvine Theatre, submitted by Los Angeles-based firm of Swinerton & Walberg, came to $13.2 million for the main theater and $1.2 million for a studio rehearsal hall and administrative offices.

Douglas C. Rankin, general manager of the theater, said an additional $4.4 million--for architectural and engineering fees, construction management, equipment and a contingency fund--would raise the total cost to $18.8 million.

Thus, construction of the smaller hall and the administrative offices would be deferred, he said, bringing costs down to $17.6 million.

Rankin said eight other bids, all within $3 millionof each other, were submitted. The bids will expireDec. 26.

Irvine Mayor Larry Agran--reached in Boston, where he was attending a National League of Cities conference--said he believes that “there is a reasonably good chance that a consensus package” for the additional $1.8 million will be approved by the City Council on Tuesday.

The money could be borrowed from the city’s Asset Management Plan, which has generated more capital than expected for public works projects such as the Civic Center, according to the assistant city manager, Paul Brady Jr. Voters then would be asked to approve a park bond in November, 1989, which would include funds to repay the Asset Management Plan.

Agran said, “A proposal to return to the voters is very important because it has been a long time since they have had a say on the theater.” He was referring to the initial $1.5-million bond approved for the theater in 1974.

Asked what the council would do to ensure that the $1.8 million is repaid in the event the voters eventually were to turn down the park bond, Agran said he will insist on some kind of guarantees from the university and the theater operating company.

“At this point I would accept pledges from the theater leadership that they would repay the (asset management) plan,” he said.

Sim said he believes that the council “will be fair-minded and visionary” but that he did not think the operating company or the university could make that pledge.

A majority on the five-member City Council is required to approve the request for more money. Agran said that if it turns out “to be a divisive issue, then I’m afraid we will lose not only the theater but essential support for a larger park and recreation bond issue, which is important to the future of Irvine.”

Councilman Cameron Cosgrove, who has raised questions about the financial risks of the request, may be the key to the council’s decision.

Cosgrove is “the most knowledgeable fiscal expert on the council,” Agran said. “If he can be satisfied, then I think we all can be.”

Agran said he is “guardedly optimistic” that the request will pass. “But I am concerned that people, in their zeal to build the theater, could lose sight of the financial security of the city. We have to ask some hard questions and get some hard answers.”

Cosgrove could not be reached for comment.