Donations Bring Disney Hall to Within $1 Million of Its Goal

Officials of the Walt Disney Concert Hall on Tuesday announced $12 million in new donations for the new home for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, bringing the tally to less than $1 million away from the final goal.

Of the new gifts, $7 million is committed for the concert hall itself--most recently estimated to cost $258.9 million--and $5 million is designated for construction of an outdoor children’s amphitheater.

Disney Hall oversight board chairman Bill Siart said that hall fund-raisers now have in hand and in pledges $208.2 million of the $208.9 million in new funds estimated to be needed to complete the hall, leaving $700,000 to go; $50 million has already been spent on design work.

“We’re almost over the top, but not quite,” said businessman Eli Broad, former chairman of the Disney Hall board, at a news conference Tuesday morning.

New donors to the core concert hall project include the New York-based Starr Foundation ($5 million), the Boeing Co. ($1 million) and Sempra Energy ($1 million). In addition, the W.M. Keck Foundation has committed $5 million to underwrite construction of the W.M. Keck Foundation Children’s Amphitheatre, a 300-seat outdoor space with bench seating, a stage and a band shell at the garden level.

The amphitheater will be programmed by both the Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Music Center, of which Disney Hall will become the fourth performing arts venue.

The hall’s architect, Frank O. Gehry, said in a telephone interview Tuesday that the addition of the amphitheater does not affect the design of the concert hall itself. It has always been part of his architectural plan, he said, but funding for it was not ensured until now.

“In the last months we actually designed an amphitheater; before, it was just [children] sitting on the grass,” Gehry said. “It started out as an idea from [theater and opera director] Peter Sellars--he always wanted to have a space in the back, for kids.”

During the last two years, Disney Hall’s plan has also expanded to include a 200-seat theater for use by California Institute of the Arts and an administration building for the Philharmonic.

Siart said that construction, which had been expected to begin this spring, may be affected by the discovery of repairs needed in the county-owned parking garage that serves as the foundation for the concert hall. These include reinforcing some pillars and repair of some cracks in the structure. Siart said hall construction should begin before the end of the year, however, and any minor delays caused by the garage problem are not expected to affect the planned opening of the Philharmonic’s 2002-03 season, beginning in October 2002.

While Gehry’s architectural plans were sent earlier this month to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors for final approval, Gehry remains undecided about whether the hall’s metal exterior will be made of steel or titanium, each of which reflects light differently.

Gehry said he hopes to make his choice by the end of the year.