TO EXPAND OR NOT . . . AND IF SO,WHERE? : A Tale of Power and Politics; Compromise May Result

One of the more charitable appraisals of “The Meeting” about the proposed Music Center expansion was that it was a disaster.

Held in MCA chairman Lew Wasserman’s office on Dec. 18, 1985, “The Meeting” was called so that Music Center chief executive Daniel Frost and director Wasserman could view architectural renderings for the expansion’s placement on a 3.6-acre county-owned parking lot across from the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

But instead, Los Angeles-based theater architect Barton Myers--at the behest of top Los Angeles County officials including then Chief Administrative Officer James Hankla--unveiled Myers’ novel idea to locate the proposed expansion between arguably the two ugliest government buildings in Los Angeles: the County Courthouse and the Hall of Administration.

A tense confrontation ensued between Wasserman and Frost on one side, and Hankla and two county supervisors on the other, over Myers’ concept. And today, more than 16 months later, the mall concept is at the core of a dispute that threatens any expansion ideas.

The aftershocks from The Meeting recently began to ebb in intensity, even to the point that one key county official, Hankla successor Richard B. Dixon, optimistically predicted a compromise could occur in a matter of months, if not weeks. Dixon, who ultimately will recommend some course of action to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors--most of whom are publicly neutral on the dispute--says he is searching for a “win-win” settlement.

Any resolution of the differences between the Music Center and the county, however, will hinge on a number of major questions, many of which may not be answered for years to come:

What exactly will the Music Center’s expansion be? Envisioned five years ago was an ambitious development featuring a 3,200-seat concert hall and theater, a 1,500-seat proscenium theater and a 500-seat black box experimental theater. But that was in 1982. In light of a soft theater market and increasing construction costs, should that idea now be scaled down to only a large concert hall as one prominent consultant has suggested?

Where is the best place for an expansion if one is even built? Myers never thought his mall alternative would create such a stir, but its introduction offered county officials what they saw as an exciting chance to raise potentially tens of millions of dollars for strapped county coffers. By building the expansion in the mall across Grand Avenue rather than on the county-owned parking lot on First Street facing the rear of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the county reasoned it could fully develop the lot for a luxury hotel and/or high-rise office building. For cost, fund raising and aesthetic reasons, Music Center leaders have so far rejected the mall and want the First Street property for the expansion.

When will an expansion be built? There has not seemed to be any hurry to launch the expansion fund drive that could amount to more than $100 million. With questions being raised both inside and outside the Music Center about its future needs and current operations, there is a feeling among some leaders that an expansion can wait.

Whatever occurs, however, is sure to be a compromise. The Board of Supervisors and the Music Center leaders due to mutual needs and physical proximity have developed a healthy respect for each others’ roles in Los Angeles’ cultural and political communities. The supervisors have relied on Music Center leaders for campaign contributions as well as to raise millions of dollars each year to subsidize the resident performing arts companies. In turn, the county has pitched in with maintenance and operating subsidies to keep the Music Center in shape.

Wasserman and Frost had heard only vague reports about Myers’ mall concept when they agreed to meet with county officials and the architect on that December, 1985 afternoon. The two Music Center representatives soon discovered that county officials, including Hankla, were very intrigued by Myers’ idea, seemingly to the exclusion of others.

In colorful renderings enthusiastically presented by Myers, both Wasserman and Frost were told how the ambitious Music Center expansion, if nestled in the Civic Center mall, would complement the current facilities without overshadowing them.

Myers envisioned the concert hall/theater expansion anchored between the two eight-story government buildings and then spanning Grand Avenue to the Music Center’s central plaza. The effect was not unlike the central plaza of New York’s Lincoln Center.

“(The mall) is the most prestigious site because it is at the head of the mall and faces City Hall at the bottom of the mall,” said Myers. “It shares the plaza equally with the Chandler, Taper and Ahmanson. One of the problems . . . (with the other, Parcel K scenario) is if the new project is spectacular . . . does it make the Chandler, Ahmanson and Taper second-class citizens?”

But it soon became obvious to Myers and other county officials attending that something was very wrong. What they first perceived as a cool reception to the mall idea soon gave way to outright anger.

“I think they (Frost and Wasserman) read it as ‘take it or leave it,’ ” said Myers.

Frost and Wasserman demanded to speak privately with county Supervisors Ed Edelman and Pete Schabarum as well as Hankla, the administrative officer. The crux of the ensuing discussion, according to participants interviewed by The Times, was this:

Where, demanded the two Music Center representatives, was the expansion plan for Parcel K, the county parking lot across the street from the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on 1st Street? That is where the county agreed in 1968 and again in 1984 that any Music Center expansion would be built and what Myers had been hired to plan by the county. Frost also reminded the county officials that he had helped write the 1968 agreement. (Besides serving as Music Center chairman, Frost is a partner in the prominent Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher law firm and Dorothy Chandler’s son-in-law.)

What Myers had felt was the high-point of his design, the Grand Avenue-spanning glass atrium, was rejected by the Music Center leaders because it would allow downtown traffic to continue moving unabated under it.

The county officials, taken aback by the reaction Myers’ plan received, reassured Wasserman and Frost that other plans would be studied. Myers did, indeed, develop more than a dozen other site scenarios, some in the mall, some on the parking lot and others using both pieces of property.

Explaining his objections to the mall location, Frost said in a recent interview that he could not imagine asking private donors to contribute to an expansion that rested between the two bland government buildings. (Even Dixon has joked that the Hall of Administration and County Courthouse remind him of “neo-Soviet architecture.”)

“The Music Center had spent a considerable amount of money with our planners to move forward with our program for moving on to Parcel K without any suggestion ever having been made about the mall up until that particular date,” said Frost. “So I have to say I was shocked and dismayed by the suggestion that the expansion should be put on the mall. . . .”

Last year, Music Center officials commissioned architectural consultants from the Karsten Companies and Keyser Marston to evaluate the mall site. They concluded that while the Music Center “could live with” the mall if it were the only available expansion location, “it would be more expensive, more complicated, take longer (to build) and would most likely produce a project that would be less compatible with (the Music Center’s) needs than if the expansion were on Parcel K.”

But to then chief administrator Hankla and a number of his top aides, Myers’ mall concept made a lot of sense. He held fast to that position until the day he left the county Feb. 28 to become Long Beach’s city manager and was succeeded by Dixon.

A strong advocate of developing publicly owned property for the lease revenue it can generate for government programs, Hankla saw in Parcel K--as well as in two other county lots due east of it along First Street--a golden opportunity. Leasing out the prime real estate for high-rise office buildings and such retail uses as a luxury hotel could, Hankla’s staff figured, raise as much as $60 million over several decades.

Technically, the board of supervisors could vote to locate the Music Center expansion any where it wants. But such a move, if forced on cultural leaders, would be tantamount to killing the project as well as straining political and practical relationships.

Those relationships stem from the 1950s when cultural leaders, led by Mrs. Chandler, successfully lobbied for the current Music Center site as a home for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and helped raise the millions of dollars to build the facilities. Over the years, the supervisors have pointed to the Music Center with pride, often hosting receptions for heads of state there.

One anecdote illustrates the importance of maintaining good relations held between private and political leaders:

Late last year, the Glendale Symphony Orchestra sought playing time at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion for this December. Sorry, orchestra officials were told, the Pavilion is booked solid.

County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who represents Glendale, contacted the Music Center, discussions took place and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra subsequently yielded its Dec. 19 date to its Glendale counterpart.

Music Center officials insist the incident occurred primarily for cultural reasons. It was appropriate to grant the Glendale Symphony at least one playing date at the publicly owned facility, said one Music Center official who asked not to be named.

At the same time, this official conceded that political considerations also entered into the Music Center’s decision on Glendale Symphony. Antonovich, after all, is one of five people who ultimately decides each year how large the Music Center operating subsidy will be and also may be a key player in the coming months in the decision where expansion occurs.

But the relationships also move in the opposite direction. The Music Center’s board of governors includes some of the region’s wealthiest and most influential banking, oil, real estate and professional leaders. A survey of campaign contributions to the five county supervisors reveals that they all have been major benefactors of the Music Center leadership.

Supervisor Edelman, a strong backer of the Music Center who has been trying to work behind the scenes to reach a settlement, has said repeatedly that he will force nothing on cultural leaders that they cannot stomach. He said he recognizes that Music Center leaders will not try to raise money for an expansion site they do not support.

In recent weeks, a detente of sorts has developed between government officials backing the mall site and Music Center leaders wanting no part of it. Although neither side cites any specific shift in their respective positions, they indicated in interviews with The Times that a friendlier atmosphere exists and traces it to Dixon’s replacement of Hankla as chief administrative officer on March 1. Even top aides to Dixon who support the mall location say they have no idea what the new chief administrative officer will decide.

“I have a sense that there is some momentum,” said Music Center vice chairman Joanne Kozberg. She said she believes Dixon’s attitude is one that understands what the Music Center has meant to the well-being of the economy and community in general.

In an interview, Dixon said a settlement could be reached within a three-month time limit the Board of Supervisors recently gave him. “I have no aversion to the mall site,” Dixon said. “But if the people who have to raise the money have, it may not be a bridge you have to cross.” Dixon added, however, that any plan he recommends would likely have to meet the fiscal needs of the county as well as the cultural needs of the Music Center.

Along those lines, Music Center leaders have agreed to Dixon’s request to reassess their expansion plans in light of a 1985 study by theater consultant Harrison Price that questioned the need for three theaters. Instead, Price recommended a large concert hall for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which would be cheaper to build than a full-scale proscenium theater. If the concert hall were to be built, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion would no longer be needed by the orchestra. It would be open for use by opera and dance companies and other events.

Philharmonic officials appear to favor an expansion, but for somebody else. Executive director Ernest Fleischmann, for instance, said he’d prefer to see “an improved Pavilion rather than a new concert hall built. I can see a need for space if opera, dance and music theater are going to expand their activites, which they should in a big city like this. A symphony shouldn’t play more than three nights a week. Musical theater or dance can play every night. . . . But it is difficult for opera and dance to play in tandem with the orchestra. The costs are enormous.”

But nobody knows yet if the Pavilion will be redone or the orchestra will move. “I suppose, in the end, (the expansion’s first) large new building would have to be a concert hall,” said Fleischmann, “because it costs between half and two-thirds what a deep-staged theater costs.”

He’s probably right. The first new building, described as a “multi-purpose hall,” will probably house opera and dance rather than the orchestra, said Kozberg. And even if the Philharmonic were the Pavilion’s sole resident company, it wouldn’t be its only occupant, she adds. Today’s touring performing arts companies must often bypass the Music Center because there is simply no space available, she said.

Music Center Opera chief Peter Hemmings calls the Pavilion “as good a modern opera house as I have found in the world.” Yet one can certainly argue for a new building, said Music Center Opera president Thomas Wachtell, particularly in the long-term.

“If you ask if we need a new building tomorrow, the answer is perhaps not. But buildings of this sort have very long lead times. . . . You can always find things wrong with the present economic climate, no matter when you look at it,” Wachtell said. “I haven’t found anyone yet who’s said that 1964 was the perfect time to build the Music Center. Raising significant amounts of money is always difficult.”