$13-Million Cost Hike Tacked on Arts Center

The cost of building the main-theater phase that is to open the Orange County Performing Arts Center next October is now $70.7 million--$13.4 million more than the figure announced before the start of construction in mid-1983, Center officials announced Tuesday night.

Timothy Strader, Arts Center board president, said the new figure is “as firm and realistic a figure possible” for constructing the Center’s opening phase in Costa Mesa. That phase consists of a 3,000-seat multipurpose theater and a 500-seat studio-type facility.

‘Businesslike, Prudent’

“We’re confident that this figure is the one that will carry us to completion (of the phase) in just one year. It’s a very businesslike, very prudent figure, but one that also ensures state-of-the-art quality,” said Strader.

The chief factors for the increase are increased interest costs and the updating of 1983 estimates of backstage construction with “specific in-construction figures,” he added.

To date, $51.2 million, all in private donations, has been raised to build the complex. (An additional $26 million, also all private donations, has been raised for an endowment fund to help maintain and operate the Center.)

Second Announced Increase

The $13.4-million increase adopted Tuesday by the Center board for the main-theater phase is the second such increase. In May, 1983, citing design additions, new planning fees, inflation and other expenses, the board adopted a $22.8-million increase, from $34.5 million (a 1980 “preliminary estimate”) to $57.3 million.

Although the board Tuesday reaffirmed its intention to build a 1,000-seat theater in subsequent phases, that facility is not a part of the current cost review. (In 1983, the estimate for this theater was $8.2 million.)

A panel headed by Raymond Watson, Center facilities vice president, was announced Tuesday to study costs and uses for the smaller theater, which is still to be designed.

Interest costs since 1983--$4.1 million higher than originally estimated--constituted the largest part of the increase, Strader said. Additional costs involving design, equipment and other technical features--nearly all of them approved prior to this summer--accounted for another $3.6 million.

Consultant Fees

Other major categories included $2.3 million for additional architectural and consultant fees, $1 million in changes to meet building code requirements and $1 million for a contingency reserve.

The installation of a redesigned stage acoustic shell, originally budgeted at $350,000, will now cost $700,000--a figure that reflects “operational improvements” that will be less costly in the long run, said Thomas Kendrick, who took over as Center executive director Sept. 9, 15 months after the Center launched a national search to fill the post being vacated by Len Bedsow.

Cutting Operational Costs

Kendrick pointed out that only $1.8 million of the $13.4-million increase included design and other revisions that he and Judith Morr, the new general manager, have recommended. These changes, he said, were all based on cutting operational costs.

According to William Lund, Center board chairman, the $13.4-million increase appears startling because “we decided against announcing cost boosts every few months and to announce it in one big final number.” But, he added, “these (new costs) are very normal--incremental ones that are a natural part of building any complex of this magnitude.”