Arts Center Receives $40-Million Gift

The Orange County Performing Arts Center has landed a $40-million gift, the cornerstone of a $200-million campaign to expand it from a building with one large hall to a complex with three major stages.

Center officials said Wednesday they will identify the donor and reveal the name of the expansion wing at a news conference this morning in a lobby of the existing, 3,000-seat Segerstrom Hall in Costa Mesa.

The gift is one of the largest donations in Orange County’s history. It will bring to $65 million the amount raised so far for the project--a 2,000-seat concert hall and a 500-seat multipurpose theater across the street from the center, with a plaza connecting the two.

Some sources pointed to Henry Segerstrom, the developer and South Coast Plaza shopping center magnate who has been the center’s leading benefactor to date, as the new mega-donor.

Segerstrom and family donated 6 acres valued at $16 million for the expansion. The Segerstroms also donated the land for the existing Performing Arts Center, which opened in 1986, and $6 million to kick-start its $73.4-million construction campaign.

Segerstrom could not be reached Wednesday; Roger T. Kirwan and Jerry E. Mandel, the center’s board chairman and president, would not confirm or deny whether Segerstrom is the donor.

At the $100-million fund-raising mark, Mandel said, the center would be ready to begin construction. But he anticipates the money will come in faster than the project’s architects, Cesar Pelli & Associates, can finish the blueprints.

“I’d say it’s at least 18 to 20 months before we break ground,� Mandel said. “We’ll have half the money soon; that’s why I’m very optimistic we can get it [built] by 2004 or 2005 the latest.�

Moving the project along quickly is the goal. Center officials say there is a long-standing bottleneck: They don’t have enough nights at Segerstrom Hall to accommodate all the classical music, opera, dance, Broadway shows, jazz and pop attractions that audiences want to see.

Last month, center officials announced that 15 of the center’s own board members had contributed approximately $25 million to the expansion fund. And they were confident that an additional $25 million soon would be committed by other board members and the five regional groups that regularly perform at the center.

Timothy L. Seiler, who heads a school for fund-raisers based at Indiana University, said that the center’s drive is shaping up as “a classic campaign.�

Although center officials last year targeted $50 million as their hoped-for “naming gift,� Seiler said that $40 million--a fifth of the estimated cost--still outstrips the 10% to 15% cornerstone sum that is a rule of thumb for such projects.

Along with the board donations, Seiler said, “it sets a tremendous pace and puts the campaign in a position of real strength. The indications are that it would have every prospect of succeeding.�

The center’s campaign could not come at a better time, said Esmael Adibi, a Chapman University economist.

He said the local economy has been especially strong in the last three or four years and the strong stock market leaves corporations and wealthy investors especially well-placed to make large donations. Barring a recession or a stock market blowout, Adibi said, “the opportunity is great and the economy can support it.�

The center expansion is part of a wave of new performing arts construction on both coasts and in the heartland. In Los Angeles, the $274-million Walt Disney Concert Hall is under construction and expected to open in 2003. The Disney family has given $100 million to the project, including an initial 1987 gift of $50 million from Disney’s widow, Lillian.

In Philadelphia, a $258-million performing arts center with theaters of 2,500 and 650 seats is under construction and scheduled to open in December 2001. The naming gift was $15 million, from Sidney Kimmel, a billionaire women’s clothing manufacturer; the commonwealth of Pennsylvania has given $63 million, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Two other halls being designed by Pelli are on the boards in Madison, Wis., and Miami.

Jerry Frautschi, a Madison toy company owner who sold out to Mattel Inc. for $700 million, has donated $100 million for a four-theater complex in the Wisconsin capital.

The Miami project, targeted to open in 2004, will cost $310 million for three theaters. It has taken three years to raise $45 million in private funds with $20 million more to go, said Tom Tomlinson, a former Orange County Performing Arts Center president who is now chief executive of the proposed Miami center. Public money will cover the balance.

As a matter of policy, the Orange County center seeks no public funds.