ARTS CENTER FUND IN HOME STRETCH

Bolstered by a James Irvine Foundation challenge grant, the Orange County Performing Arts Center has launched a drive to raise the last $5 million needed to pay for the $70.7-million main theater, center officials said.

To date, more than $65 million has been raised in pledges and gifts for constructing the 3,000-seat multipurpose theater which will open Sept. 29 in Costa Mesa, officials told a press conference at the center site.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by Zubin Mehta, will perform at the opener. Later attractions will include the New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, New York City Opera, Chicago Symphony and Cleveland Orchestra.

In announcing the foundation’s $2-million challenge grant, center officials said they hope it will help put the main-theater drive “over the top” by early fall.

Under the matching-grant terms, the center must raise $2 million from other sources to receive $2 million from the San Francisco-based foundation.

With this $2-million grant, the foundation’s total donation to the Orange County Center would be $5 million, the most the foundation has given to an arts organization. In 1981 the foundation gave $3 million to the center.

The center’s largest donation is $6 million from C.J. Segerstrom & Sons Inc., which also gave a five-acre site in the company’s South Coast Plaza office and shopping district for the arts complex.

The main theater’s $70.7-million construction cost was announced in October. The center’s board said the cost was $13.4 million more than the figure given in 1983, due to revised design and a longer construction schedule.

The board also said it was committed to building a 1,000-seat second theater, estimated to cost about $10 million. However, decisions on design and a date to start construction have been shelved until the main hall is opened and paid for, officials said.

In a separate fund-raising effort, the center reported more than $64 million in deferred commitments for an endowment fund to underwrite operating, maintenance and programming costs.