Architects Hired to Design Buena Park Cultural Center

The Buena Park City Council has approved an agreement with a Rancho Cucamonga architectural firm to design a $3-million cultural center. The firm has been asked to prepare plans for two alternative locations for the 450-seat center.

The council also voted Monday night, 4-1, to approve an agreement with the firm of Wolff, Lang & Christopher to development a master plan for a new civic center as well as the cultural facility.

According to Susan Chow, assistant to City Manager Kevin O’Rourke, the firm was asked to provide master plans to locate the cultural facility either next to a new civic center--at the site of the current civic center on Beach Boulevard--or to place the arts facility behind the city’s recreation center on Knott Avenue, with the civic center still replaced at its current site.

The plans are due in June, 1989, Chow said, with construction expected by May, 1992.

In August, a minor flap occurred when John von Szeliski, a Newport Beach architect, issued a press release indicating that he would be working with Wolff, Lang & Christopher on the cultural arts center. O’Rourke called that release “erroneous and inappropriate.”

But Chow said Thursday that von Szeliski, who was a theater consultant for the Orange County Performing Arts Center, would serve in a similar capacity for the Buena Park center.