Santa Ana OKs Concept of 90-Acre District for Culture and Commerce

A conceptual plan for a 12-block cultural-commercial district in Santa Ana, anchored by an expanded Bowers Museum, has won approval from the City Council.

Construction is expected to start early next year on a 19,000-square-foot annex to the city-owned Bowers at 20th and Main streets. The project will cost the city $9.2 million.

Until this week, the City Council had not given official approval for more studies on a North Main Street redevelopment district that would seek major office, retail store and entertainment facilities, as well as two or three more museums.

Studies, EIR Ordered

That approval was given at a Redevelopment Agency meeting Tuesday night when the council (whose members also constitute the Redevelopment Agency) voted, 5 to 0, for studies, including an environmental impact report, on the proposed sector between 17th Street and the Santa Ana Freeway near Santa Clara Avenue.

“This is a very major milestone for this city--the Bowers expansion and this district, the first of its kind in the county,” Mayor Dan Young said. “Santa Ana fully intends to be a leader, culturally as well as commercially.”

However, the only city funds now committed to the overall project are earmarked for the Bowers expansion. The $9.2 million for annex construction, and $2 million more for new Bowers parking lots, are being paid with tax revenues generated under Santa Ana’s redevelopment programs, said Cynthia Nelson, executive director of the Redevelopment Agency.

The expansion is aimed at turning Bowers, which has suffered from a lackluster image and failure to attract corporate donors, into a regional center in visual arts.

The Bowers project also comes at a time when the Laguna Art Museum has just completed a $1.6-million reconstruction, when the Newport Harbor Art Museum is planning to build a multimillion-dollar new home and when the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is considering a satellite facility in a new C.J. Segerstrom & Sons office complex in Costa Mesa.

Young and other Santa Ana officials acknowledged that the 90-acre “Santa Ana Museum District” plan, one that could take 15-20 years to be completed, is still in an “exploratory, conceptual stage.”

No Deals in Works

Although city and Bowers board officials said they have held talks with museum and commercial groups on possible ties, no deals are in the works.

The City Council endorsed the district idea in July, 1986, when first proposed by the Bowers Museum’s newly named board of governors. It was hailed as a move to use arts institutions as a catalyst for wooing big-time commercial developers to that part of North Main Street. (The sector is now mostly small businesses, apartments and residential housing.)

Under the plan proposed by the Bowers board and later drafted by the city’s planning consultant, Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates, the 31-year-old Bowers would continue its focus on the cultural histories of California, the Western Hemisphere and the Pacific Rim regions.

Architect Norman Pfeiffer, whose firm has been involved in expansions at leading cultural institutions, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, said this week the working design for the Bowers annex is to be completed next month.

The 19,000-square-foot annex is to include a large new gallery and a 350-seat multiuse facility. Bowers’ main structure is 24,000 square feet.

Pfeiffer’s firm, using fiscal projections by Keyser Marston Associates, also drafted the district conceptual plan approved this week by the City Council.

That plan envisions developing two or three other museums--each operated separately from Bowers and offering a different focus, such as science, transportation or agriculture--along with hotels, restaurants, shops, movie theaters and housing.

After the Bowers expansion, the next key development would be a “Central Arts Plaza” across from Bowers to include a new museum, large offices and other facilities. (The new MainPlace shopping center, also fronting North Main Street, is outside the proposed district.)

The district concept, Santa Ana officials said, seeks the same kind of commercial and cultural success enjoyed by the South Coast Plaza sector in Costa Mesa. That area includes the Orange County Performing Arts Center, South Coast Repertory Theatre and a branch of the Laguna Art Museum in a shopping mall.

In addition to the city fund going toward Bowers expansion, Santa Ana has allocated $1.1 million to underwrite the museum’s operations and maintenance in 1987-88, said Bowers director Paul Piazza. The museum’s overall budget is $1.8 million.