Oceanside Amphitheater Sought as Major Link in Theater Chain

The 150-foot-deep sand pit seems an inauspicious piece of real estate, but the site at Oceanside Boulevard and El Camino Real is a key component in Hal Kolker’s plan to become a national player in the entertainment industry.

Kolker’s La Jolla-based Spectator Corp. will soon ask city officials in Oceanside for permission to build a 25,000-seat, $27-million outdoor amphitheater that would be the site of rock concerts, symphony performances and Broadway-style shows. As envisioned, the theater would have 12,500 permanent seats, and the rest would consist of lawn seating.

The Oceanside project is just one of five theaters that Kolker plans to build with $125 million to be raised by a Wall Street investment banking firm. The money would help finance outdoor theaters in suburban areas of Palm Beach, Fla.; Baltimore, and Chicago, and a restored indoor theater in downtown Chicago.

If successful, the developments could put Kolker in a league with entertainment moguls such as James M. Nederlander of Los Angeles, owner-operator of eight outdoor amphitheaters, including the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles and the Pacific Amphitheater in Costa Mesa. Controlling so many venues gives Nederlander--as it would Spectator--enormous clout in booking big name talent, said James Sletteland, managing director of Ladenburg, Thalmann & Co., the Wall Street firm that is backing Kolker.

“The name of the game is tickets, tickets, tickets,” Sletteland said. “You have a bigger impact in booking acts if you are able to offer multiple locations. In addition, there is strength in unity because you have different locations and different seasons and therefore you can spread your revenues throughout the year.”

Citing “economies of scale,” Kolker said the live entertainment business is evolving the way of the movie theater business; nationwide theater chains wield enormous power in booking first-run movies. Noting that the concept of amphitheater ownership dates back to the ancient Greeks, Kolker said he may propose building more outdoor sites if successful with the first four.

Local concert promoters disagree as to whether the San Diego County market can support the Oceanside amphitheater, with its size and 40-mile distance from downtown San Diego.

Speaking positively was Bill Silva, president of Bill Silva Presents, San Diego’s largest locally based concert promoter, who said the theater would fill a conspicuous need for a large-scale venue.

“We believe the existence of a facility seating 20,000 to 25,000 people would result in San Diego attracting a number of major artists who have regularly passed on San Diego because the Sports Arena is not large enough, while San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium may be too large,” Silva said through a spokesman.

“Such a facility would prove positive for both local concert-goers and San Diego economy in general,” Silva said.

The pessimists cite San Diego’s reputation as a concert market that is “softer” than its population might indicate. And they warn that the amphitheater could end up competing against the indoor sports arena proposed for downtown San Diego, not to mention existing facilities such as the San Diego State University amphitheater and the San Diego Sports Arena.

“Candidly, I don’t think the market today would support the facility,” said Brian Murphy, president of Avalon Attractions, the Encino-based concert promoter that books talent into the SDSU Amphitheater and the Sports Arena.

“Of the 20 shows a year we do at the (14,000-capacity San Diego) Sports Arena, only a handful sell out, and the rest do between 8,000 and 12,000 tickets. Given the market today, they are building an amphitheater for the year 2000 when the population might support the facility,” Murphy said.

Moreover, many performers would choose Irvine Meadows or Pacific Amphitheater over an Oceanside venue because the Orange County sites offer a much larger potential market from which to draw ticket buyers, Murphy said. Avalon also books talent for the Irvine Meadows amphitheater.

Kolker said his feasibility studies show that the Oceanside amphitheater needs only to draw 8,500 to 9,000 ticket buyers per show to succeed financially. And attracting people won’t be a problem: Concert-goers will drive up to 90 minutes to see a performance, he said

Kolker, 40, is a former vice president of the San Diego Clippers professional basketball franchise and a former vice president of the San Diego Sports Arena. He formerly worked as a personal assistant to singer Neil Diamond and held an executive position in Norman Lear’s entertainment production company.

Apart from Kolker, Spectator Corp.’s investors include Rossetti Associates, the Santa Monica-based architecture firm that is designing the amphitheaters, and Barry L. Rosenblatt, founder of Video Library. Spectator would own the stadiums and promote the shows but would hire an outside firm to book the talent. Among the booking agents Kolker is negotiating with are MCA, Nederlander and Silva.

Spectator has signed a contract to buy the 67-acre sand pit site from Collins Development for an undisclosed price, a purchase that is contingent on its receiving the necessary approvals to go forward with construction, Kolker said.

Although he has made presentations to Oceanside civic groups, Kolker has not filed a formal application for permission to build. Formidable hurdles remain: He must complete environmental impact studies and submit management plans for the noise and traffic that a theater would generate. Those hazards have already raised concerns among residents in the immediate neighborhood, Oceanside Mayor Larry Bagley said.

At peak attendance, the amphitheater could draw up to 8,000 cars to an area of North County already overloaded with traffic. And noise is likely to be a significant issue, despite Kolker’s plan to build the amphitheater stage below street level, a design facilitated by the depth of the sand pit.

Also, Spectator is requesting that the city of Oceanside underwrite $5 million in low-cost industrial development revenue bonds, with interest and principal to be repaid by Spectator. To justify the bonds, which are often floated by municipalities to help finance projects that have a demonstrable economic benefit, Kolker said the amphitheater will create jobs and generate at least $500,000 in tax revenues for Oceanside.

The bonds are critical for the feasibility of the Oceanside project because the high cost of land makes it difficult to “pencil out,” economically, Kolker said. The amphitheaters that Spectator plans in other parts of the country will cost $18 million to $22 million each, he said, or at least $6 million less than the Oceanside project.

Stressing that the project is still in a formative stage and that Kolker has yet to make a formal application with the city, Oceanside’s Mayor Bagley said the project would benefit the city by bringing in top-quality performing acts to a culture-starved corner of North County. The amphitheater would also produce a significant increase in Oceanside’s tax revenue base, he said.

He described the traffic and noise as “not insoluble problems” if events are scheduled so as not to conflict with peak traffic.

Kolker is negotiating to build an amphitheater on land within the boundaries of the South Florida Fairgrounds in Palm Beach County, Fla. Contacted on Monday, fair officials declined to comment on the proposal, deferring to Kolker.

Spectator has also signed a deal to build an amphitheater in Country Club Hills, Ill., 20 miles south of Chicago, on a 450-acre master planned site that is being developed by First National Realty and Development of Chicago, one of the Midwest’s largest shopping center developers.

First National Realty and Development President James Dellaportas said a partnership deal has “already been cut” with Spectator to build a 25,000-seat amphitheater on the site. Country Club Hills Deputy City Manager Mary Dankowski said that, although she and other city officials are aware of the amphitheater proposal, the developers have not formally applied.